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COPVR!GHT DEPOSIT 



Self Mastery 



BY 

FROID DANIELS ^jul^A 






The Author's Private Edition for Students 
of the Occult, and especially for those 
who seek wisdom, happiness health 
and success through Self Illu- 
mination and the Great 
Occult Way 



Copyrighted 1913 

By J. R. DeMude 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 
Cleveland, O. 



^B I- /i if 



— 



y 



s ^ 



Dedicated to 

ISABEL SHAW 

whom to know has been one of the 

richest joys of my life. 



Rather would I discover the cause of one 
fact than become King of the Persians." 

Democritus 



'What the fool cannot understand he laughs 
at; thinking that his grin indicates su- 
periority. Instead however it betrays 
the presence of weakness, incapacity 
and a specie of idiocy." 



"That writer does most for humanity who 
gives the most knowledge, and takes 
the least time." Col ton 



©C!.A33245g 



SELF MASTERY 



CHAPTER I. 



A Voice in the Desert Silence. 

When the dream of gold had lured men to brave the 
perils of unknown regions in the great American desert a 
short time before the news of the "Find" at Goldfield had 
flashed around the world, the luring voice of the desert was 
heard by a young man in the East who soon found himself 
far west of the great Rocky Mountain range — beyond the 
backbone of the continent, headed for the heart of the great 
American desert. The dream of gold had seized his brain 
with a relentless grip; the "fever" was running high, and 
his blood was filled with a spirit of adventure, which had 
never known any fear of the wild. Accompanied only by a 
burrow which was "packed" with supplies insufficient for 
such a perilous journey, he soon found himself venturing 
to that far distant point in the treacherous desert, where 
the wandering coyote halts before turning back again 
toward the north lands. 

Another day found the venturesome prospector cross- 
ing great barren fields of alkali ; nearing the desert moun- 
tains of solitude, where the myriad of burning, jagged 
mountains of rocks seem to pierce the very heavens. This 
day of awful heat passed slowly and was now far spent. 
Shafts of steel blue, paralleled with orange and a soft red 
which blended to lavender were marking the sky, while the 
golden sun was still poised just above the hills. Night was 
drawing nigh. Great shadows of the towering needle peaks 
were falling gently upon the sand dunes and barren rocks, 



6 SELF MASTERY 

until at last the desert was wrapped in a mantle of complete 
darkness which found a tired and lonely man with his meek 
companion comfortably resting under the mantle of a desert 
night, which once beheld can never be forgotten. 

The morning of another day found the seeker of for- 
tune pushing onward; farther south through the burning 
sand and trackless waste, often having difficulty in cross- 
ing deep gulches with their perpendicular walls. Now a 
valley of black and white alkali had to be crossed ; the shore 
dotted with clay hills, rocks; occasionally a scrub cactus, 
a clump of grease wood, or a bit of sage to break the same- 
ness of the landscape. No longer is there any sign of life. 

No longer could the coyote be heard with distance mak- 
ing the awful silence more terrifying and hideous by his 
wailing notes; not even the sight or sound of the small 
mournful desert owl, which is one of the last evidences of 
bird or animal life seen or heard as one penetrates the 
desert. 

It is now noon-day, and the awful heat turned his 
thoughts to his fast diminishing supply of water, but not a 
sign of water, other than that which spelled death to man 
or beast who drank of it. Scattered bones and skeletons of 
animals near it, told of its death dealing contents. The 
meager supply which he had left was now becoming scarce. 
His burning thirst pictured the precious drops of water as 
of more value than the gold which he had sought, and of 
which he had found so little. Only when his thirst became 
unbearable would he take a sip from his scanty store. 

The close of another day found him near the very 
heart of that elusive, far off south range; the very center 
of the desert, in whose mirages men often witness weird 
pictures of ships sailing the high seas ; or of life in a city, 
and no city nearer than five hundred miles as the crow flies. 



SELF MASTERY 7 

On the east side, and at the foot of a towering crag 
which now cast its shadow several miles in the east, he 
found a welcome spot which offered a sort of shelter for 
himself, and also some scraggly sage bushes which would 
furnish a most welcome repast for his only companion. 
After "unpacking" and feeding the burrow his small reward 
for faithful service, the prospector hobbled him safely and 
turned him loose for the night to find a more sumptuous 
meal among the sage brush after which he apportioned 
to himself his own meager meal. 

The sky, which now for some moments had been a deep 
azure, slowly assumed a dull gray. The row of jagged peaks 
which lined the horizon a short distance to the southeast, 
formed what was once the shore line of a great inland lake. 
Its precipitous crags shot high in the heavens ; rocks which 
were a mile wide at the base, pushed straight up out of the 
earth thousands of feet. Their natural coloring was a dull 
red; some gray, some a yellowish white, while here and 
there spots of nameless combinations dotted its walls. 

As the great orb of day began to sink below the crest 
of the far away Sierra Nevadas, this weary youth beheld a 
picture the like of which few mortals have ever been privi- 
leged to see. Once beheld, its glories will never fade from 
the memory; never become less vivid. In no other place 
than the heart of the desert does God paint such scenes. 

The painting of this picture divine began with a dull 
grey mantle slowly spreading itself over the entire heavens. 
With this color hanging over the landscape as far as the 
eye could reach, there came a mantle of cool air from the 
sky which descended gently over the basin from the Rockies 
to the Sierras; a mantle, as if let down by angel hands to 
cheer and refresh any wanderer who might have yielded to 
the luring call of the desert. The sudden change of tern- 



8 SELF MASTERY 

perature brings a welcome chill to man and beast, and 
caused the tired prospector to pull his Navajo blanket 
more closely about him. An hour before, a blanket could not 
have been endured, but now it was not only welcome, but 
necessary to keep away the approaching cold of the night. 
The gray of the sky is now being pierced by thousands of 
silvery shafts of soft white rays from the far west, which 
stop where they fall against the colored peaks to the east 
and south. The outer edges of the broad shafts of moon 
colored white which pierce the depths beyond the tops of 
the lower crags are turning to purple hue. Soft threads 
of gold parallel the white from the western horizon, becom- 
ing more pronounced and beautiful as they approach, and 
culminating in a glorious splendor as the nameless harmony 
of colors fall and mingle pleasingly upon the dull red spires. 
The whole of the mountains to the east seem now to be the 
central point where small lakes of pale orange color are 
penetrated by the soft white ray. The white is now seen 
to gradually merge into a rose pink; and the picture be- 
comes more beautiful than before. Floating clouds of 
golden red with pillows of brightest gold, shift slowly from 
peak to peak, the many color combinations of orange, pink 
and lavender fall in glorious harmony wherever they touch 
the towering sentinel. The entire sky becomes more 
beautiful until the scene becomes awe-inspiring, and beyond 
the power of man to describe. It lasted in its full glory 
only a few moments, when great clouds of darkness began 
to fill the old lake bed from below, as if actually rising up 
out of the ancient lake; gradually filling up higher and 
higher against the heavenly picture, until the last of its 
shafts of orange and purple faded away with the light 
of the rising moon. The last shaft of the lingering sun 
who had long since covered his face beyond the great Pacific 



SELF MASTERY 9 

had faded from the sky and the awful stillness of the desert 
night was supreme ruler. 

The tired prospector was sitting where he would later 
sleep for the night, with the twinkling desert sky for a roof, 
snugly wrapped in the folds of the warm blanket. So unbe- 
lievably quiet is the silence of the desert, either day or night 
when there is no wind, that one may hear the blood surging 
against the drums of Tiis ears. The heart seems to beat 
aloud as if to break the awful solitude. 

The beautiful picture had now faded from the heavens. 
The silent moon had become hazy, and the huge clouds arose 
slowly from the south which quickly hid the solemn face of 
the queen of night ; and as the darkness stole over her face, 
the thoughts of the tired prospector turned backward and 
took flight to the east country and he dreamed of friends far 
away across the Rockies. 

Soon a sense of terrible loneliness stole over him; the 
feeling of the certain failure of his trip in the desert; of 
the fast disappearing provisions and the thought of another 
failure added to those of his list of others. He dreamed of 
opportunities gone; of trials, sorrows and disappointments 
which time had only embittered. He thought of his honest 
struggles; of his worthy motives; that somehow Fate had 
conspired against him; of hopes and ambitions crushed, 
shattered and trampled under foot. While thus absorbed 
in thought of his own disappointments, with emotions of 
remorse and revenge, his thoughts suddenly were changed 
by faint sounds as of that soft, low harmony of a great 
pipe-organ; the low enchanting music borne from a great 
distance. His thoughts now turned to the old Sanctuary 
where men and women lift their voice and soul to what 
seemed to him the "unknown God." The music divine 



10 SELF MASTERY 

floated so softly in that gentle stillness that it seemed as 
if it were intensified by the presence of Angels, which 
caused his soul instinctively to seek communication with the 
Great Unseen. 

While his soul and heart were lifted in silent prayer, 
his attention was suddenly attracted by some dancing thing 
in the basin of the ancient lake bed, which he could see but 
dimly through the increasing darkness. Instantly he found 
himself staring toward that basin which millions of years 
ago had held a great land-locked lake. There he beheld great 
soft clouds of light accumulating — gradually covering ap- 
parently a hundred feet. It quickly spread to an immense 
diameter. In another instant our intruder of the desert had 
sprung to his feet, defiantly poised to challenge, or to learn, 
but his attitude of challenge quickly softened. His eyes met 
a scene never to be forgotten. The soft, white, phosphor- 
escent blanket of light began slowly to lift from the great 
floor and reveal the forms of thousands of human beings 
where only a moment before there was a strange, vast, 
uneasy mass of mysterious clouds. As the clouds lifted, the 
bewildered human forms began to move about in slow, weird 
confusion ; as if in fear and remorseful dread. As the cloud 
rose higher and higher their confusion gradually ceased, 
and soon all of them assumed attitudes of stillness. A deep 
and still more awful silence now seemed to pervade the 
whole of the desert and the apparition of human forms now 
stood still; watching, waiting, as if in silent expectation. 
Every ear seemed attentive ; every eye gazed in the direction 
of the only human being who beheld the vision. Disappoint- 
ment, sorrow and suffering had left their unmistakable foot- 
prints marked deeply in the countenance of each weary 
individual. Failure was written on many a brow, while 
suffering marked many another. Other heart-breaking evi- 



SELF MASTERY 11 

dences were plainly visible everywhere; and each seemed 
to bear a sorrow all his own. 

Suddenly the awful silence was broken by a voice which 
seemed far above. No form or light was visible in that 
direction. The voice spoke in soft, low, full tones as though 
addressing this strange assembly. It spoke in a pitying 
manner — words which were indelibly recorded in the eager 
brain of the lonely prospector. It spoke in part as follows : 

"Why hither stand ye gazing 
When duty's plain and clear, 
Why sorrows so amazing 
When help is always near? 

"Your hearts seem filled with sadness; 
Your bodies racked with pain ; 
Yet, life is filled with gladness 
If truth you'll seek and gain. 

"Lend ear to truth ; proclaim the cause. 
Unfold thy soul, and learn its laws. 
You're told by him that you are God's ; 
Right here and now; not when we're clods. 

"If Godly powers be in your reach 
To gratify your heart, then teach 
This lesson to yourselves, this part, 
God does not mock the human heart." 

The voice of one in this sorrowful multitude now broke 
the short silence. 

"Why hither do we gaze? Our sorrows are more than 
we can bear. Why does a just God heap misery and pain 



12 SELF MASTERY 

upon the faithful? Have we not kept the faith and lived 
according to all the laws of the church ? Still our lives are 
blighted; our hearts filled with grief; our bodies marked 
with disease and pain. We have sought in vain. We have 
followed the teachings, kept the laws, and revered the com- 
mandments ; but behold our plight ! Joy and happiness are 
still afar off." 

Following another interval of silence the first voice 
spoke again: 

"Then bury your man-made laws of God ! 
For they blind the soul to light. 
Cover them deep beneath the sod, 
Thy powers no longer they'll blight. 

"Mankind has ceased to hearken 
To the voice that dwells within ; 
Therefore his life is darkened, 
Though innocent may seem his sin. 

"Behold the powers within you! 
Lend ear to the soul, and its cries ; 
The Soul will guide and teach you, 
Until truth you will realize." 

Following this scene were revealed many things of pro- 
found importance to the race; and then the blackness of 
the lake-bed slowly engulfed the field of forms which soon 
faded away into a pale soft white, until no form could 
longer be seen. The old lake-bed was left once more hidden 
in its mantle of darkness, and the mountain walls were 
again standing out clearly in the soft light of the moon. 



SELF MASTERY 13 

All that occurred or was revealed on that wonderful 
night, hundreds of miles from civilization, cannot be given 
here. It was revealed, however, that the weary prospector 
was to leave the desert at once; the way to go was clearly 
pointed out ; and that he was one chosen to lead many to a 
true realization of their own divine powers. 

"For centuries," said the voice, "mankind has been 
blindly groping for the secret of power, of health, of happi- 
ness and success — groping blindly in the dark; refusing to 
see by the aid of the great Light Eternal which ever shines 
within the soul itself. 

"They have sought," continued the voice, "but have not 
found; knocked, but no answer came, for they knocked at 
the wrong door." 

It was made known to the seeker of gold that there 
were greater treasures to seek than the gold of the desert. 
The voice which had lured him to the center of that far-off 
solitude would reveal treasures without price; treasures 
of love; of life eternal. It was revealed that after he had 
gained years of experience, supplemented by education and 
unfoldment, that he would be prepared to do a vast good 
for humanity ; that his message should go to the individual. 

Some of the great truths that were revealed on that 
memorable night, appear condensed and in a practical and 
understandable form, in the following pages. Enough 
truth to make every individual in the world happy — barring 
none — if these truths were applied practically to the lives 
of individuals. 



14 SELF MASTERY 



CHAPTER II. 



Through Ages of Darkness, Shines 
the Light Eternal. 

Self Mastery, expressed in other terms, or at least its 
philosophy, is at once the most ancient as well as the most 
modern philosophy. King Solomon is accredited with say- 
ing that, "There is nothing new under the sun." Whether 
he was or was not the first to express that thought, it, never- 
theless is true. All things which exist today, always existed 
potentially. 

The great truths presented in the Philosophy of Self 
Mastery are as old as time itself; but as little known to 
the most of humanity as the nature of life at the bottom of 
the sea. Yet the great truths of the creative forces of the 
soul are so well known by a chosen few, whose lives have 
become "heaven on earth," as a result of the knowing and 
living in harmony with the secret forces of nature that, 
some of them are found living in paradise, in every city, 
though in humble homes on which fall the shadows of great 
marble palaces; palaces which too often are but gorgeous 
tombs, or prisons of sorrow and remorse; where discord, 
discontent and sadness reign supreme — Palaces of Sorrow. 

The potent message which Self Mastery offers, finds a 
wondrous response today in the hearts of thousands. The 
world is hungering and thirsting for the message it brings 
and especially those who have felt that fate was unkind; 
those whose lives have been filled with bad luck, misfortune ; 
who have struggled all through life and have met obstacles 



SELF MASTERY 15 

at every turn, which blocked their progress and dashed their 
fondest hopes into the dust. 

The philosophy of Self Mastery opens a new world to 
all who have been thus unfortunate. It shows the reason 
for the apparent curse which rests upon them and places 
the powers of Fate in their hands, so that they may shape 
their lives and destinies according to design. 

From that other large class of people who, for some 
reason, real or imaginary, have pulled down the curtain of 
indiif erence, so that they are blinded to the divinely illum- 
inating splendors of the Nazarene's philosophy, the Mastery 
of Self lifts that curtain and literally bares the soul to one's 
own gaze, and they rejoice in singing a new song, and all 
life has a new meaning. 

The philosophy of Self Mastery breaks the shackles 
which bind one in darkness, and arouse one from that stupor 
of indifference ; reveals his own inherent powers and divine 
attributes; and forever removes the blindfold from self- 
deceived eyes. It brings out in bold relief that transfig- 
uring power of things Divine so beautifully that one is im- 
pelled to halt in the mad rush and whirl of the twentieth 
century grind, and behold himself as an immortal soul ; look 
upon himself as God looked upon man "In the beginning." 

The philosophy of Self Mastery when thus seen, 
prompts the soul triumphantly to cry out against the awful 
injustice which we ignorantly heap upon ourselves ; cry out 
against the misery, wretchedness, sorrow and failures we 
bring ourselves, and unerringly points out to us the way 
which is right. 

It would be unfair and unjust to the subject, however, 
to suppose or expect that a full comprehension of the great 
underlying laws involved in Self Mastery could be given in 



16 SELF MASTERY 

one discourse, for the "Realizing" requires "growth", and 
that requires "time." 

For more than a thousand years ministers have been 
preaching about, and all around the most beautiful and fas- 
cinating things of life, but have sorrowfully failed to reveal 
the real kernel of truth and life. If they had succeeded 
in revealing the true philosophy, there would be but one 
great religious philosophy instead of several hundred. 

The simpler rudiments of this beautiful philosophy to 
an extent, is now being seen and felt in some of the 
churches, but owing to the fossil nature of the church gen- 
erally, the divine philosophy of Self Mastery has had to 
force the clergy to feed the flock something more than 
"stones" when the hearts of men and women are crying 
for "bread." 

The universal religious unrest, as seen through the 
world, in all the various movements such as Christian 
Science, Divine Science, Telepathic Influences, Magnetic 
Healing, Spirit Healing, Theosophical Movements and the 
revelations of reincarnation, the revival of Buddhism, and a 
host of other worthy movements, is a "fore-runner" — "The 
voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way," for the 
unbelieveably wonderful light, power and happiness which 
is about to dawn upon the world through the evolution of 
"divine law" ; through the universal realization of the indi- 
vidual; of the great God. The voice of the soul is heard 
crying out against power lying dormant in every soul, its 
divine powers being used to mar and destroy the temple 
and wreck human happiness as a matter of choice. Liter- 
ally to bare these forces to the senses of man is the message 
which Self Mastery brings to all who earnestly seek light as 
to the Mystery of Self, in a spirit of truth. 



SELF MASTERY 17 

The Problem of all Ages. 

During all the past ages, of which we have any record, 
the one great problem which has occupied the most serious 
attention of the brightest minds, and mightiest intellects, 
has been that of the soul and its powers. Not only is this 
true of the centuries which have been swept into the misty 
past, but likewise true of today. As the roll of the centuries 
brings us face to face with the problems which great minds 
are struggling to solve in 1913, we see eminent scholars, 
throughout the world, co-operating harmoniously in the in- 
vestigation of the soul and its powers. Nor are their efforts 
in vain. The mysterious secrets of the soul are fascinating 
the greatest minds of Europe and America. Marvelous 
things are being done; and things still more marvelous in 
this domain, will yet be done. The surface is only touched ; 
the mystery of God's alphabet is just solved, and we are be- 
ginning to work in the light. 

In order that the mind may be rid of anything which 
will prevent us from grasping a new truth, let us lay aside 
any thought of religion or holy books, and look at all sacred 
books as you do your history, or a novel, and bid time turn 
backward a little over 2000 years. Listen to the Sages! 
Hearken to the wise men of old ; lend ear to the prophet as 
he sings, "A Merry heart doeth good like a Medicine; but 
a broken spirit drieth up the bones. ,, "A Merry heart 
maketh a cheerful countenance; but sorrow breaketh the 
spirit" — A million sermons are bound up in those lines. 
Truths of the soul's sorrows ; its wonderful creative power ; 
its power for good or evil alike on the human body; (on 
other bodies than its own) a message announcing the fact 
that the secret powers of the soul were startlingly potent, 
and known ages ago, long since forgotten, and recently dis- 



18 SELF MASTERY 

covered again by men who dared question, wonder, and in- 
' vestigate. 

Wise old Solomon! Renowned in those days through- 
out the known world for his wisdom, he recognized the mil- 
lions of good sermons which those two sentences contained. 
It matters not what you think of Solomon's character. 
Most of you know that he couldn't get a job as a dog catcher, 
or driving a garbage wagon if he were living today, if he 
lived as he did then. But wisdom is not knowledge, nor 
have all wise men been good. He was no better nor much 
worse than eminent contemporaries, and lived according to 
the customs of that age. Yet his mind quickly grasped the 
magnitude of such a proverb. Only a moment's reflection 
is here required to see that, in his estimation, so important 
and valuable were these laws of the mind and soul consid- 
ered, either for producing good or evil results, that Solomon 
wanted to make certain that posterity might take advan- 
tage of their wondrous possibilities, and his private scribe 
was commanded to write it in the proverbs. That passage 
is in itself a gold mine to those seeking light; and worthy 
of being carved in marble — in the world's Hall of Wisdom. 
Too many of us have long chanted the songs of the prophets 
and the words of the Nazarene in a spirit of dutiful mean- 
ingless indifference. They mean no more than the "tink- 
ling cymbal, or sounding brass." Many of us contentedly 
boast that the teachings of the Man Jesus are only for old 
men and enfeebled women; fables intended to make their 
declining days more endurable. Never did man make a 
more fatal error. Jesus was not an impractical dreamer, 
/but a wonderful Seer, who announced secret laws which 

/ were then generally unknown; laws which are the most 
practical, sure, certain and scientifically correct that the 

1 world has yet discovered. 



A 



SELF MASTERY 19 

Let us consider some of the simple laws expounded by 
the one prophet whom all skeptics, all unbelievers, and all 
atheists everywhere alike admit was the sweetest character, 
the grandest brother, the noblest man, and about the only 
real friend of humanity of which the known world has any 
record. Divesting the same principle above quoted from 
Proverbs, of all its emotional language, Jesus expressed the 
same immutable law of mind, so simply, that a child, if let 
alone, can grasp it. "As a man thinketh in his own heart, 
so is he." A whole volume pressed into one sentence. As 
he continues to think, so shall he remain. Worth a thou- / 
sand sermons if you can see it ; sermons which are directly 
applicable to the daily life of every business man, profes- 
sional or laborer alike. Men have blundered over this mine 
of occult gems for ages, and many will blunder, stumble 
and fall for centuries to come. 

The renowned Plato in his life long search for the 
soul's secret, discovered so much about the creative power 
and its magic effects upon the body, that he was forced to 
the conclusion that man by nature was Divine, born of God, 
and that the devil wasn't on the job; that the real man, the 
soul itself ivhich inhabited the body, was an immortal 
entity; indestructible, eternal! That man, during the ages 
past, had been able to use those divine potvers at will; 
powers, which we have attributed to angels and gods only; 
that, through wrong living, and by habitually breaking the 
laws of his own divine nature, man's divine gifts at last be- 
came so perverted, by his own choice that his divine attri- 
butes, which he formerly could use at will, ivere gradually 
taken away; eliminated by a well knotvn natural law that, 
as a result of such a life, all the horrors of hell were nat- 
urally draivn down on the heads of those who chose so 
wilfully and untvisely. 



20 SELF MASTERY 

This same law, in all animal life eliminates that which 
is not rightly exercised or wisely used. Thus it was that 
Plato taught of the manner in which man sacrificed his di- 
vine rights. His investigations led him to believe that it 
was possible for posterity again to attain this former estate. 

It is a well known fact that this natural law of elimina- 
tion is seen most strikingly illustrated in a physical man- 
ner in fish, which are found living in the several great caves 
of the world. They now have no eyes; but upon close ex- 
amination the skull reveals the fact that once that particular 
fish family had eyes; and when the brain is examined, there 
is the remnant of a perfect optic nerve. When the fish were 
first imprisoned in their underground cave, they had eyes; 
but living in total darkness there was no use for the eyes; 
there was no sun light to furnish the active stimulant; the 
exercisor; and not being used at all, the function of sight 
soon became dead. 

Thus it is with any other function of mind, body, or 
soul — God eliminates that which we do not wisely use. 

While there are many historical figures, great and 
small, who taught these same laws, yet for the purpose of 
this book only two or three will be mentioned. 

Shakespeare said, "If you would attain a virtue, as- 
sume it" ! ! That is another whole volume on metaphysical 
power, boiled down to one sentence. He knew what he 
was talking about. It is generally conceded that his knowl- 
edge of humanity, and its frailties ; of the effects of emo- 
tions upon the mind, brain and body was not exceeded be- 
fore nor has it ever been exceeded since. 

Emerson, Whitman, and others taught the same law. 
There are a thousand teaching likewise today. The initial 
truths then, underlying the greater laws of Self Mastery, 
are by no means new. 



SELF MASTERY 21 

During the long years of unfaltering effort ; of untiring 
struggles of man to enslave the elements, harness the light- 
ning and subdue the Earth in order to add comfort and hap- 
piness, the secrets of the miracle working power of nature 
were laid bare, time and again, until we now have added to 
our comforts, thousands of wonderful inventions which 
one hundred years ago existed only in the minds of some of 
our wildest dreamers, or only potentially. Today we have 
conquered many of the physical laws of nature, and exclaim, 
"Behold, what wonders God hath wrought." 

And now the mighty cry goes up, from all over the 
world, "how about harnessing the most mysterious of all 
forces — the subtle powers of the mind?" Or, "those strange^ 
and mysterious forces of nature which, under certain cir- 
cumstances not yet definitely known, seem to obey the will 
of man, and through which the most astounding facts, reve- 
lations, and phenomena are produced. How about harness- 
ing those powers ? Powers which the chemist by the aid of 
his test tubes has proven that its powers are not beyond 
human comprehension. What will science yet do with these 
miracle working agencies?" 

The wisest and best men proclaimed these powers ages 
ago. Men and women have been guillotined and burned at 
the stake for daring to reiterate this truth ; and behold now 
our chemist announces that he proves the claims of the 
ancients by chemical analysis. 

Never in the recorded history of mankind was there 
such a universal awakening to the possibilities of thought 
power — soul power, as there is today. The wonderful po- 
tential possibilities of right thinking, and its blessing to the 
world ; and wrong thinking with its attendant curse is now 
stirring the entire civilized world. The thinking world is 
awakening to the fact that the beautiful teachings of the 



22 SELF MASTERY 

old prophets; teachings which have long been buried under 
theological trash, are wonderfully alive! The stupid ef- 
forts which succeeded in covering the divine truth as re- 
corded for centuries, are now acting as a boomerang, show- 
ing as never before what an awful price is paid by posterity, 
in misery, sickness, sorrow, death and wholesale murder, 
as a result of the evil designs of ancient political intrigue, 
and deliberate perversion of truth. What an everlasting 
impression is made on minds which think, when we contem- 
plate the heritage which befell humanity as a result of the 
wicked ways of our fathers. The horrors of life's tragedies 
which blight the world as a result of false teaching can 
never be computed. The wondrous miracle of truth is 
shown by the fact that in defiance of all this accumulated 
and compounded villainy, to pervert and conceal truth, up 
through the deep layers of theological rubbish is coming to 
the surface, glimpses of immortal truth, seeking the light 
as it were, like the plant kept in the cellar, reaching up 
toward God's sunlight. So successfully had the evil de- 
signers concealed the truth that mankind has been groping 
blindly in the dark for centuries — seeking the light. Usually 
when he did find it, or suspect its whereabouts, it meant 
death to him because it is difficult for one to conceal Self- 
Illumination. 

The Unseen Chemist 

Today there is a new spirit dawning over the world, 
the spirit of toleration ; a light — "that light which lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world." There is at present 
a great occult wave sweeping over the nation; a wave of 
unsuppressable magnitude and enthusiasm. People of all 
classes are showing an interest as never before witnessed 



SELF MASTERY 23 

in the world, marvelling at the great possibilities of mind 
building ; of character building ; success building. A living 
interest is aroused in a power which destiny decrees shall 
bring untold happiness to generations yet to come. 

The wisdom of our immediate ancestors, in making the 
priceless sacrifices for us which they did, is vindicated. They 
planned wisely that we might be free and privileged to pry 
into God's mysteries without fearing prison or persecution ; 
free to herald our discoveries to the hungering world, — vin- 
dicated a thousand times in the discovery which they made 
possible; and stupendously important laws which reveal to 
view the miraculously creative force of the human mind and 
soul ; powers now known to exist and manifest for equally 
good or evil results, during each and every state of mind 
or emotion, according to the kind of emotion ; whether mild, 
violent, depressed or whether of love, faith or confidence. 

Within each of us, within our inner selves, we carry an 
unseen Chemist, with magic powers which are more in- 
tensely real than the most fascinating fiction. This unseen 
Chemist carries love, health, happiness, misery, sickness, 
sorrow and often death. Without any voluntary thought or 
intention on our part, it creates life or brings death; sick- 
ness or sorrow ; saves life or destroys it ; makes of us demons 
or angels; 'and the secret of this Unseen Chemist which 
bears happiness or death, the secret of its favorable or un- 
favorable, kind or unkind acts is hidden in the simplest 
and at once the most complicated occult statement that the 
great Nazarene Prophet ever made. It is found in "As a 
man thinketh in his own heart so is he." 

So simple that it sounds childish, but it contains a 
potent truth which is about to revolutionize the world. It 
has long proved the fatal stumbling block for clergymen, 
professional, and laymen alike; but at last it has yielded 



24 SELF MASTERY 

up the key to its mystery. Its secret is so simple that the 
wisest could not see it, yet the most humble need not go 
astray. Its powers for good can never be fully estimated, 
and a fuller knowledge of it will prove it to be the prime 
factor in finally redeeming the human race. 

Creative and Destructive Forces. 

For a long time eminent physiologists, physicians, and 
psychologists have agreed that the mind's power had a won- 
derful chemical influence upon the body; an influence for 
good or bad — all depending upon the nature of the thought. 

It was noticed that sudden fear often causes death; that 
agonizing, unbearable grief turns the hair white in a single 
night. It happens so often that it is common knowledge and 
it seems unnecessary to point to particular cases. However, 
as Marie Antoinette is a well known historical personage, 
reference to her may prove of more value than a reference 
to others less known. 

Poor, unfortunate Marie Antoinette! That pitiable, 
misguided figure of French history, whose hair was as black 
as night ; her figure stately and erect. On the morning fol- 
lowing her husband's execution, she came from her boudoir, 
her shoulders drooping, and all the color departed from her 
cheeks; it had gone forever. Where nature had painted 
roses were now seen the deep and unmistakable traces of 
agony. Deep furrows were plowed in her colorless face ; the 
pupils of her eyes were only dark spots in staring discs of 
scarlet. The world beheld in her a pitiable object lesson as 
to the wages of sin against self. Her withered features 
were a haggard monument erected in honor of the quick 
and awful work of that Unseen Chemist, when directed 
unwisely. 



SELF MASTERY 25 

Sorrow plows deep furrows in the countenance. It 
creates a chemical, a poison, which lowers the powers of 
one's vital resistance; reduces the weight of the body; de- 
stroys the appetite, and paralyzes the power of digestion, 
thereby so weakens the body, that it becomes the victim 
of any deadly germ. 

Violent fits of anger, rage or jealousy each creates a 
different kind of deadly poison, and is usually followed by 
a high fever ; then chills ; then a sick spell in bed. 

Prolonged grief is slow but certain suicide. It pro- 
duces a poison in the blood which gradually closes and 
destroys certain groups of cells in the vital organs. 

Anger, rage, jealousy, revenge, grief, each one after 
its own kind, creates a powerful poison in the blood, al- 
mpst instantly after the mental condition or emotion asserts 
itself. 

Each one of these emotions creates a separate, distinct 
kind of poison. Each poison affects the entire body and 
brain, but more particularly some special organ of the body 
such as the lungs, heart, liver, stomach, kidneys, etc. The 
organ most affected will be determined by the kind of men- 
tal storm raging. 

Certain emotions instantly change the odor of the 
breath. In fact so quick, sensitive and wonderful is this 
force that it actually inoculates the saliva with a virus cor- 
responding to the kind of emotion present. Under certain 
conditions a special kind of saliva inoculation is noted in 
kissing. No idle dream is this, but a cold demonstrable fact 
proven chemically and otherwise. 

Who has not noted the disagreeable odor of the breath 
of one who is in great grief? What man or woman so un- 
fortunate as not to have noted the divine perfume with 



26 SELF MASTERY 

which God scents the breath of the wife or sweetheart when 
tenderly held in the arms of the husband or lover ; or when 
the emotion of love is present? 

The change of the nauseating odor of the breath dur- 
ing grief to that of the sweetest, purest odor, is almost in- 
stantly wrought, if the thought which has produced the 
grief is suddenly removed by discovering the thing be- 
lieved is untrue, and the reverse emotion is set up. To il- 
lustrate : a grief may be present over a love affair, and the 
lover suddenly appears upon the scene and disabuses the 
mind of the thought which produces the grief. When the 
error is discovered, the trouble settled ; and when later this 
is followed by the emotion of love, the change is like magic. 
This is a simple illustration but will serve to fix the thought 
as to the effects produced by suddenly reversing deep emo- 
tions. 

The sublime beauty of this great Unseen Chemist is 
that its wonderful miracle working agency can be con- 
trolled — directed; that its power for good naturally far 
out-strips its power for evil. Were this not true, the race 
would be extinct. 

A few cases showing the fatal effect of perverted men- 
tal creations may be cited, showing the undisputed facts 
in such a graphic manner that the lesson will not be for- 
gotten. 

A case is reported in the Landon Lancet, which illus- 
trates the destructive power of mind or of the Unseen 
Chemist which does the mind's bidding: A boy, nine years 
old was badly bitten on the hand by another boy while 
fighting. Notwithstanding the fact that every effort was 
made to save the boy's life, forty-eight days later he died 
of hydrophobia. 



SELF MASTERY 27 

Another case will illustrate the same law : The eminent 
Dr. Van Swieton, well known both in Europe and America 
for his knowledge, skill and achievements, reports a case 
of a young man who, while in a street brawl, fighting, 
while terribly enraged, tried to bite his adversary, but ac- 
cidentally bit his own finger very badly before he realized 
what he was doing. That young man died while in terrible 
agony, three weeks later, of hydrophobia, or a disease so 
closely resembling it, that it could not be distinguished from 
hydrophobia. 

Three of the most eminent authorities on children's 
diseases have informed us that hundreds of innocent babies 
are poisoned and die every year as a result of nursing the 
breast following moments of anger and rage on the part of 
the Mother. In such cases, the physicians are compelled to 
issue a death certificate, which is a lie on its face. These 
deaths are attributed to other causes, while the truth is, the 
milk was poisoned; inoculated with the poison which rage 
caused the Unseen Chemist to create, and the murder of an 
innocent is the result, the price paid for such indulgence. 

The mother of a well known London physician was acci- 
dentally bitten by an enraged epileptic. Result? She died 
of the bite a few weeks later. 

Notice, if you please, how quickly the state of rage or 
hate inoculated the saliva with a deadly poison, which is 
certain to claim the life of the victim. 

Creative Power of Love versus Hate. 

Love creates several distinct elements which instantly 
enter the blood and which are similar to a virus in their 
action; the principle of which promotes joy, brings roses to 
the cheeks, brilliancy and smiles to the eye and intellect; 



28 SELF MASTERY 

health to the body, and a splendid success in any chosen 
field of operation. 

Rage in man or beast inoculates the saliva with a deadly 
poison, so that the bite of a man enraged is as poisonous as 
a reptile. 

Haven't some of you seen a teased rattle snake, viper 
or copperhead become so enraged that it sank its poison 
fangs into its own body and in a few minutes turned on its 
back, stiffened, and quivered contortively and died in awful 
cataleptic condition a few minutes later? It is a common 
sight where poison reptiles are found. This is akin and 
analogous to what occurred in the mind, blood and body of 
the young man referred to above who bit himself and died 
of his own venom. 

There is no passion to which the human mind is sub- 
ject but which instantly saturates the whole body with a 
sort of virus after its own kind. Either that of love, hate, 
joy, sorrow, success or failure — each producing a result 
peculiar to itself. 

What has seemed to be a law of God, that often works 
great injustice to the innocent as well as the guilty, is found 
in the fact that a man can't prevent his own deadly poison- 
ous thought waves from escaping into space, and eventually 
injuring others, but his own eventual punishment with a 
vengeance is as sure and certain to be meted out to him as 
it is that the sun will rise tomorrow. 

The influence of this mighty force does not cease or 
halt in the brain or body where it was created. Its power 
sets up immense, radiating, etheric, occult waves, similar to 
those generated at the spark gap in wireless telegrapTiy, 
and sends them flashing through space — hundreds of miles 
— yes, thousands of miles away. 



SELF MASTERY 29 

Crashing with the speed of light, out into the world, 
where other brains intercept them; pick them up, and 
sooner or later in another brain, they, set up emotions, 
passions, ambitions, or depressions and plunge the victim 
who was sensitive to them into a similar condition ; and soon 
there follows a tragedy. 

Allow yourself, if you will, to contemplate the great, 
horrifying psychological crimes committed throughout the 
world, the responsibility for which no scheme of law yet 
devised by humans can fix or cope with. Nor will, or can it 
ever be done by any code of laws now written in any library 
of civil or criminal procedure in any country on this planet. 

Have you never felt a sudden mental or spiritual ela- 
tion, or a sudden depression without being able to assign 
any cause, and you could not shake the spell off? Beware 
of such feelings. They are caused by irresponsible tramp 
thought creations, turned loose upon the world. Arouse 
yourself therefore, to the meaning of their presence and pos- 
sibility when such feelings pervade you. Realize the neces- 
sity of throwing such depressions off. Nothing will succeed 
so quickly as forcing yourself to think thoughts of love, and 
good cheer for all mankind and of yourself, last. 

Wise was the prophet who sang, "Thoughts are things V 
* * * * endowed with wings." Be careful therefore/ 
what you think. Wise was the one who first sang, "Cast 
thy bread upon the water; it will return to thee in many 
days." Be careful of the quality of bread. Wise was the 
best friend this world ever knew — Jesus, the son of the car- 
penter ; the Son of Man, — when he said, "As ye sow, so shall 
ye reap." "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." "With 
what measure ye mete," etc. "A new commandment give I 
unto you — that ye love your enemies, — bless them that curse 
you." "Do good to them that hate you, — pray for them that 



( 



30 SELF MASTERY 

persecute you." This quoted from about the only real friend 
the world ever knew. 

The gems of divine wisdom given to the world by the 
Christ, reflect laws which are so beautiful that, when most 
of us come near enough to the Light Eternal to get a glimpse 
of things divine, the purity of that light blinds us. Seeing 
through the physical eye, and not through the great Inner 
Orb of the soul, the contrast is so great that often we be- 
come totally blind to some of the simplest, plainest, clearest 
and easiest to see, of all God's wondrous gifts to men. Many 
of us deliberately close our eyes and then exclaim, "Give me 
light," or "I can't see," when with the eyes open, a glance 
about us will reveal divinity everywhere. 

As we further consider the tremendous part which emo- 
tional chemistry plays in the affairs of men, we find that 
anxiety and worry are twins; that prolonged worry pro- 
duces a chemical; a virus in the blood which destroys the 
nerve filaments throughout the body, and works irrepara- 
ble harm to the entire nervous system. 

It also creates an occult element which is certain to 
bring defeat in the very thing about which we manifest the 
anxiety. Jealousy creates a virus which produces tumorous 
growths which often make death seem preferable to life. 
Often it produces cancer of the breast or lips. 

Joy produces a quality which brings life, strength, hope, 
courage and ambition to both body and mind. Under its 
magic stimulus, we walk with our heads in the air; our 
shoulders erect; with a smile on our countenance and a 
word of good cheer for all. 

Pleasurable emotions cause the lungs to do far better 
work, and thereby enrich the blood, make the body glow, 
and make us look, feel, and act like real men and women. 

Let us look at the havoc wrought by gloom, — depres- 



SELF MASTERY 31 

sion, remorse, regret. In these qualities is concealed the 
cold, cruel, relentless hand of self inflicted tortures. Often 
its death grasp is indicated on the cheek of the despondent 
maiden, whose heart has been broken; — disappointed in 
love ; plainly indicated by the awful chemical shock through 
which that disappointment forces the body! 

The demoralizing effect which this long continued emo- 
tional grief has upon the mind, body, and soul is clear be- 
yond any possible doubt. Such despondency as disappointed 
love creates a virus which closes the cells of the lungs ; first 
one portion or group of cells closes, then another. Its 
sphere of action becomes larger, and more extended, until 
at last most of the internal surface of the lungs is closed ; 
the blood becomes overloaded with poison which would nor- 
mally be eliminated; but now the lungs no longer can per- 
form their function properly, and the fatal message is 
plainly written. It becomes more and more unmistakable 
as the surface of cell closure increases. It finally becomes 
a perfect hot bed for the deadly tuberculosis germ — a pitia- 
ble picture of the last struggles of the unfortunate victim 
who was once so cheerful, so full of life and hope. It is now 
easily seen that what was once the home, the "Temple" of 
a happy immortal soul, which was working out while here 
on earth the plan of the Great Divine Will, soon ceases to be 
a fit place for the soul's habitation ; and it is impelled soon 
to release its hold, renounce its claim, leave its Temple, and 
depart for that great Unknown Country. 

The Unseen Chemist and Love Enthroned. 

"He that controlleth himself is greater than he that 
controlleth an army." 



32 SELF MASTERY 

Conforming to the plan of the writer, the negative, or 
destructive creations have been presented first, that you 
may more firmly grasp the divinely optimistic view. To see 
but one side and know nothing of the other, would work an 
injustice equally to you and the subject alike. It is there- 
fore desired most emphatically to convey the great truth 
that the mind's creative power for good results far out- 
weighs that for evil when understood intelligently; when 
properly guided and wisely directed. One of the first and 
last ambitions in presenting these potent facts is that, those 
who comprehend may attain happiness, health and success. 
This message is sent to the individual. 

The philosophy of self mastery enables us to attain hap- 
piness, joy, success and health; enables us to gratify life's 
sweetest ambitions and its secret hopes. It enables us to at- 
tain those normal desires which never cease to throb in the 
heart of the average human being, unless confidence, the 
will, and hope are dead. 

The first great principle in the practical application of 
the philosophy of Self Mastery is found in the self evident 
truth that God (nature, if you prefer) does not inspire the 
human heart with hopes and longings without also placing 
within reach, a power by which those hopes may be grati- 
fied; for God is not a mocker of men. God's laws are na- 
ture's laws and man cannot break them without paying the 
penalty. In as much as we cannot avoid them, it is wise to 
live in harmony with them. It follows therefore, as the 
night the day, that if you have secret hopes and ambitions 
to attain, for which you have struggled in vain, it is certain 
there is not only a good and sufficient reason for your fail- 
ure, but also a normal, natural way by which your hopes 
may be attained. I care not whether it be regarding your 
business, the attainment of some fondly cherished hope, a 



SELF MASTERY 33 

matter of friendship, or a deep abiding love. If it con- 
stantly begs for expression, admission, realization, there is 
no doubt that such longing is in harmony with the plan of 
your life as intended by the Great Divine Architect; and 
there is a way by which the attainment is sure and certain. 
Furthermore, whether it be attained during your present 
life, during this incarnation, it is certain that some day, 
somewhere, somehow, in another life perhaps, it must be 
satisfied and attained in order to fulfill the plan of your 
soul's existence. Its needless postponement, however, on 
your part, will only delay the fulfillment of God's Divine 
plan for you ; entailing needless disappointment and sorrow 
and will only add more karma for you to work out. 

Each human being is a perfect prototype of the uni- 
verse, a perfect law unto himself ; a king, a God. Every law 
in this universe is found within the individual. Man is a 
miniature Solar system within himself — as much a perfect 
part of this great psychic world system, as our Solar system 
is a perfect part of the thousands of similar systems of 
worlds in space. Our world, the earth, is always in the right 
place, right on time, to be relied upon, which fact should be 
copied as the first principle for our own life. 

If the laws enunciated by the prophet of Nazareth are 
proven to be Nature's Laws and therefore, the only sane 
course for any man to follow, no argument or sophistry can 
ever hope to conceal this simple fact very long from prying 
minds of men. If "God" is divine, so is man. If man is a 
practical creature, so is God. If God is just, man must 
be and is, at least to himself. He cannot be otherwise. He 
pays himself what he earns. If unjust, apparently, to self, 
he in reality is unjust to everybody else. If true to himself, 
he is false to none. The law is inexorable. 



34 SELF MASTERY 

The man Jesus proclaimed a practical God; one who 
mingles with you and me in every minute. You may call 
Him "the great law," or "the divine substance," or "love," 
in which creative principle, we ever "live, move, and have 
our being." Called by any other name, God responds the 
same. The God of nature is good. He is kind. He helps 
me to smile, and to enjoy. I can see him in the stars; hear 
his voice in the trees ; talk to him in the flowers, and behold 
him in the face of my enemies. 

Another of the vital tenets, or self evident truths in the 
philosophy of the Mastery, of Self, is that every human be- 
ing is created in the Image of God ; is a child of God as much 
as you are a child of your mother. By nature you are di- 
vine, whether you believe it, like it, or not. There is no 
such thing as your possible annihilation. You may have 
your choice ; reflect your divine nature, your true birthright, 
or you can choose the other path. Every soul is created 
free to choose his own fate. 

Fate shows that every soul is free, 
To choose his life, just what he'll be. 
For wide the realm, God's freedom given, 
But he will force no one to heaven. 

He'll call, persuade, direct aright, 
Crown you with wisdom, love and light ; 
Ten thousand ways He's good and kind, 
Though He'll never force the human mind. 

The Divine Creator leaves us free to choose and act. He 
also adds a little responsibility clause to this charter of 
freedom and privilege; you must shoulder the responsibil- 
ities for your own acts. This you cannot hope to avoid. 



SELF MASTERY 35 

Divine freedom carries with it, within you, the penalty in- 
flicting power for every wrong you do, which is automatic 
in administration of punishment. It never fails to do its 
duty. It is the court, judge, jury and jailer. It may seem 
often to be tardy in administering proper or suitable pun- 
ishment, but it is sure and certain and we can never escape 
it, for it is ever right with us. 

It has been said that "The highway between 'heaven' 
and 'hell' is a straight line." Of the path between success 
and failure, the same. Between happiness and unhappiness, 
likewise. These roads are dotted with unfailing guide posts, 
but most of us either refuse to read them, or shy; get be- 
wildered, frightened, and run away into the wilderness of 
confusion. This, however, does not lessen our responsibility 
or help us to escape. Many of us are not afraid of anything 
and boastingly try to prove this to ourselves and try to con- 
vince our acquaintances that reading the guide posts which 
line both sides of the path of life is only foolishness and 
forms no part of the creed of a real man. How well we 
are paid for such a course of procedure! What a harvest 
we reap which we have sown, tho we are prone to complain 
that we have not earned such a deal from the hand of fate. 

You need no teacher to point this out, nor do you need 
any sacred book to prove it to you. If you will but open 
your eyes, and look about you daily you can behold di- 
vinity everywhere. You, my brother, or my sister, were de- 
signed by that great, kind Father, to reflect your divinity; 
to smile, to laugh, to work and to play; to let your light 
shine out brightly that it may warm and cheer the world. 
It is your privilege and your duty to be successful; to enjoy 
life; to love nature, and build a bodily temple which bears 
the stamp of God. 



36 SELF MASTERY 

Success, happiness and an abundance cannot come to a 
mind that is pinched, shriveled, skeptical and pessimistic. 
Nor can the mind that doubts and fears, ever hope for much 
success — never until doubt, fear and pessimism are rooted 
out of your garden of mental creations and kept out. If 
one would become in harmony with the law of opulence, the 
law of plenty and of success, he must put himself in har- 
mony with the laws which govern his own being. When you 
finally conclude that you are born of God and not of the devil ; 
that you were created by a divine principle ; that you there- 
fore must possess divinely creative forces within your being ; 
that God is not a mocker of man's hopes, ambitions or of his 
miseries, and that you are therefore entitled to happiness, 
health and success as a natural heritage, then the bright and 
shining goal which you seek to attain will be in plain sight. 
You will have reclaimed your birthright. When you have 
made up your mind to desert bad luck, misfortune and pov- 
erty forever ; that you are going to substitute in their places, 
happiness, and success, your battle to find heaven on earth 
is almost won. The very act of turning your back to the 
bleak and barren coast of poverty and unhappiness, when 
done in a spirit of profound sincerity, conviction and deter- 
mination, will arouse within you a power to do, which you 
never suspected possible. Things will begin to move as you 
wish, making way for you; things which were impossible 
for you before will now seem easy and natural. Where be- 
fore grew a thistle will now be seen a rose. Where before 
you saw obstacles and monsters glaring at you defiantly, you 
will now see an opportunity. Where before you met a re- 
buff, you now find an inviting hand extended. Do your high- 
est and noblest duty to yourself and allow no one to block 
your progress because of any conventional feelings or no- 



SELF MASTERY 37 

tions of friendship and its too often meaningless and empty 
obligations. 

While it is true that this creative principle within is 
inseparably linked by a golden cord of sympathy to that 
Great Universal Source of love and energy, it is equally true 
that no mind or intellect is great enough to attract that 
greater and lasting success, if that mind is snarling, back- 
biting and groveling in the mire of pessimism and doubt; 
or who habitually howls that the whole world is wrong. 
By so doing one creates an adverse occult energy which re- 
tards, blockades and actually dams up the great occult source 
through which the stream bearing your success must of 
necessity pass before it can possibly bring the results you 
seek. Nor can such one possibly know real happiness while 
steeped in the poisonous elements of envy or sarcasm. 

Never forget the poison which such emotions or states 
of mind create. Hate, Revenge and Jealousy act upon the 
body and mind like a dynamite bomb upon a building, when 
exploded within its walls. Such emotions shatter the men- 
tal and psychic structure into chaotic ruin. 

Self Mastery and its Magic Key. 

The master key to the vaults of happiness and success 
is found in the law of Love, Hope, Confidence, Good Cheer ; 
and a joyous smile is its gentle handmaid. These will lead 
you to within a step of a practical knowledge of your own 
psychic power. Having succeeded in this, the subtle laws 
of occultism will soon unfurl before you in all their glorious 
usefulness, and your life will never again be the same. 

Love is the master key to all perfect ideals of life. It 
is that something which struggles in the tiny flower seed to 
create the "flower in bloom." It is that which impels the 



38 SELF MASTERY 

bee to carry the fertile pollen from the male to the female 
flower. It impells the mother, human or animal, gladly to 
sacrifice life in order that the offspring may live; it is the 
law of worlds — the power which impels the earth through 
space — that law which is surging through the soul when 
husband loves the wife, the mother the child, the lover the 
sweetheart, or that of friend for friend. It is eternally 
creative unless perverted by a perverted will. Even then 
it creates, but its creations are of evil. "Love is the ful- 
filling of the law." When living in harmony with the law 
of the creative thought, love, which is nature's highest 
manifestation, fills our lives with complete attainment of 
every desire, hope, and ambition which is worthy of being 
so named. 

The secret of creating and drawing to us all that is 
good has been proclaimed from the mountain and the valley 
for ages, and always has found some fertile soil. Usually, 
however, it has fallen on deaf ears. The Nazarene prophet 
announced it in "A new commandment give I unto you that 
ye love one another as I have loved you," for "love is the 
fulfilling of the law." The world's master minds and writ- 
ers have proclaimed the same law as the only force capable 
of solving the human problem for at least ten thousand 
years. And few there be, comparatively, who have solved 
the problem for self. 

Love is a vital law and not an emotion. The greatest 
of all the Apostles, in his Immortal 13th Chapter of First 
Corinthians, proclaims it : "Though I speak with the tongue 
of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become like 
a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have 
the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and 
have not love, I am nothing. And though I give all my 
goods to feed the poor, or my body to be burned, and have 



SELF MASTERY 39 

not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and 
is kind; it envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not 
puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her 
own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoices not 
in iniquity, but rejoices in truth, beareth all things and 
hopeth all things. Love never faileth. * * * And now 
abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of 
these is love." 

When we think of Love as an emotion, either pleasant, 
harmful, good, bad, or otherwise, and that it ends there, we 
deceive ourselves as badly as the Roman Churchmen de- 
ceived themselves when they announced that Gallileo was 
a fraud and sent him to jail. After due deliberation they 
had proven (?) the claims of the great Gallileo all to be 
false; that what he taught about the world plunging at 
terrific speed around the sun; and that earth revolved on 
its axis; that the sun did likewise; that he saw several 
moons around Jupiter ; that Jupiter was many times larger 
than this earth ; that Saturn had strangely fascinating rings 
around it in the form of discs which were several hundred 
thousand miles in diameter; that he saw mountains on the 
moon through the telescope which he invented; all these 
claims, they said, were "Contrary to common sense, con- 
trary to the Bible and to the teachings of the church, op- 
posed to true religion, and contrary to all the laws of God," 
and therefore they saw to it that such an heinous fiend as 
Gallileo was placed safely in a dungeon prison. The horri- 
fying facts are too well known to be presented here. Every 
school boy today knows that the great Gallileo was right; 
that the church as usual was wrong ; that the wisest clergy- 
men which the great church could produce shamefully de- 
ceived themselves ; deceived the world, and plunged human- 
ity into a deeper gloom than already had engulfed it, as the 



40 SELF MASTERY 

price of closing their eyes to glimpses of the Light Eternal 
when brought face to face with it. A greater calamity than 
befell them, befalls the individual who deceives himself by 
tossing aside the thought of Love as being any less than 
as universal, as eternal and as necessary as the law of 
Gravity. 

Deceiving one's self as to the law of love is fatal to 
one's highest and best interest. The effects of the Law of 
Love, when wisely directed, are as certain as any other 
fixed law of nature, or of God, if you choose. When love is 
thrown into a frenzy or a panic, caused by jealousy, rage, 
or envy, the results are as uncertain in their destructive 
creations as the uncertainty of the panic-struck magnetic 
needle when carried into an excited field. 

The Law of Love operates under the joint* control of 
the Will, Faith, Hope, and Belief. It operates as unfail- 
ingly as the law of negative and positive magnetism. It is 
as certain as the result of fire when brought into contact 
with inflammable materials. 

It is "the greatest thing in the world"; the greatest 
law in this universe. Its powers may wisely be used to 
produce the most wonderful happiness, health, and pros- 
perity, or this same law may easily be perverted. When 
thus directed, its powers produce confusion, adversity, fail- 
ure, poverty, sickness, sorrow, dire distress, and death. The 
recent scientific proof that what the Ancients claimed for 
"love," and said of it was true, is the greatest discovery 
science ever made, and will yet be the means of bringing 
more happiness, more comfort, more pleasure, more joy, 
and be promotive of more real advancement to the human 
race than any other of the many wonderful discoveries yet 
revealed to man. 



SELF MASTERY 41 

Every one has some fondly cherished hope, some ideal 
which he has strived to attain. Many have strived in vain ; 
others have attained their ideal to a degree; still others 
perhaps have strived more nobly; fought more gallantly, 
yet failure has been the only apparent reward. Some, per- 
haps, have a lingering hope still knocking at the door of 
their hearts, when the means by which that hope might 
have been realized has long since vanished; the hope itself 
crushed — shattered — almost gone, years ago. Still out of 
the past the voice of hope whispers to you. Many a worthy 
battle has been lost when attainment of some fondly cher- 
ished ideal was right at the very threshold ; almost attained. 

An honorable defeat, however, is no evidence of failure, 
for whenever a steadfast hope is found to linger for years, 
you may be certain that there is a way to gratify it; that 
according to the great divine plan, it is right and just that 
it should be gratified; as to when, or just how, it is not 
always easy to know. 

The puzzling question is certain to present itself to 
those beginning to see the light, "How can we reclaim, re- 
gain ourselves, or establish a conscious, intelligent associ- 
ation with the creative energies of our own soul, in that 
manner and degree which will aid our psychic creations in 
the building, or in accomplishing the object which seems 
the most desirable and necessary for our happiness or suc- 
cess ? The lesson in itself is not difficult, but it is confusing 
for most of us, and requires time for absorption and assimi- 
lation. It is well to remember that you did not comprehend 
and absorb your arithmetic, your grammar, algebra, analy- 
tics, or physics in a week, or a month, but that it required 
a long time. After you had mastered them, it seemed per- 
fectly simple, only natural, self evident, and as if you had 
always known them. Comprehending psychic forces is 



42 SELF MASTERY 

much more simple, but few grasp a clear meaning instantly, 
because the mind has for so long a time been falsely edu- 
cated, which fact bars one's progress. So clearly and 
brightly does the light of the great good and kind Father 
illuminate the pathway of life, that few people ever gaze at 
its splendor long enough to get used to its beautiful 
radiance. Most of us need a gentle helping hand to assist 
us over the rough places in starting out anew. 

In beginning our search for the Occult Way, we must 
remember that "heaven is not gained by a single bound, but 
we build the ladder round by round." 

If you would attain happiness through the Life and 
Light Eternal, lay aside all preconceived ideas which do not 
proclaim for you your own divinity; for whether you are 
good or bad (which means good going the wrong way; on 
the wrong track) , you are still, nevertheless, immortal, in- 
destructible. 

In seeking that which doth not corrupt or perish, one 
must never lose sight of that heavenly birthright. 

After having gotten this far, let us begin to rid our- 
selves of all such rubbish as envy, doubt, fear and pessim- 
ism. Do not be so weak or cowardly as to say, "I can't," 
but assert "I can," and do it. That attitude does not cost 
you as much effort as the "can't" attitude and besides it will 
not only succeed in ridding you of the curse, but leave you 
with a strength you never had before. Discard layer after 
layer of the poisonous crusts of rubbish which you have 
accumulated until the last of the old shell is gone. Then 
you will behold yourself as God beheld man when first He 
created him and "made man in His own image, and saw 
that he was good to look upon." You will then behold your- 
self an immortal soul, in all its transcendent beauty ; ready 
again to start on life's journey; down the great shining 



SELF MASTERY 43 

Occult Way — ready to be guided by that still, sweet voice 
within ; the light of your own immortal soul ; ready to claim 
your own; lovingly to demand that which you desire, "and 
it shall be given," given by the creation of the occult forces 
of your own soul with which you were endowed at the be- 
ginning. 

When freed from the curse of a weak, whimsical, per- 
verted and uncertain will ; when one has fully comprehended 
the meaning of the soul's creative powers, all that the heart 
craves, or the body needs is within easy reach. 

Many will ask "how about the application of the occult 
forces to business? Can the creative psychic powers of 
man be so directed and controlled that a definite object, 
aim or course of procedure in business affairs may be 
shaped? And if so, to any valuable degree? 

Is it practical when applied to every day business? to 
the affairs of every day life ? The answer from all who have 
tried it is, that it works miracles. That answer should be 
sufficient. 

Let us consider one of the simplest of all occult evi- 
dence which may be comprehended by those interested, even 
though they possess no knowledge of the occult at all. Every 
worthy attainment which man has achieved had its begin- 
ning in longing, in hoping, in dreaming, in the building of 
air castles, if you choose. It matters not whether it was a 
mechanical invention, a deep friendship, health, happiness, 
or the building of a battleship; it was first given birth in 
the psychic centers of the brain ; there cherished, nourished, 
and fed on hope and encouragement, day after day. There 
was present a constant longing in the same mental direc- 
tion — ever dreaming with an intense constancy, always in 
the one line of hope, during which time the combined action 
of occult, psychic, and creative energies, contributes to the 



44 SELF MASTERY 

perfection of the dream, adding power and material each 
day, creating always in the positive direction, until at last 
every psychic condition within the mind of the "dreamer," 
within the aura of his activity became perfect; ready for 
the physical creation. The creative waves had lodged in 
many another mind, in which an unconscious, harmonious 
co-operation with that of the dreamer's forces had been 
building the resources of success sought, and which at last 
brought the "dreamer" an unseen assistance from many 
unexpected sources, until finally, all who looked could have 
seen the "dream" being actually materialized into a physical 
reality ; and soon that which was originally "only a dream," 
stands out clearly to all— created. 

You will notice that emphasis is placed on creating "in 
one direction only" in connection with the exercise of these 
subtle forces. An illustration may bring the law out more 
clearly : If a frog is in a well thirty feet deep, with a little 
muddy water at the bottom, and the frog climbs up three 
feet one day, and falls back; climbs up five feet the next 
day, looks back at the tempting muddy water, and jumps 
back ; then the next day climbs up ten feet, but looking back 
down yields to the temptation and decides to go back once 
more to the muddy water; then the next day has another 
longing to climb out of the well, and succeeds in climbing 
up only two feet, and finds it harder climbing now than 
before, and goes back; finally, if the frog continued this 
climbing and falling back and can't resist the temptation 
offered by the sensation of indulging in the muddy plunge, 
how long will it take the frog to climb out of the well ? 

Most of us are like the frog. One day we succeed in 
attaining wonderful heights, and almost rid ourselves of 
those deadly parasites, fear and poisonous emotions, such as 
envy, hate, revenge, and jealousy, and we invite hope, love, 



SELF MASTERY 45 

confidence, optimism, zeal, and enthusiasm to abide with 
us. When we do, how quickly the voice of the soul expresses 
its approval, in our face, our feelings, and in spiritual 
exultation. Then one is likely to say, "Surely I am on the 
right road now." But are you standing on a sure footing? 
Are you sure you will not slip and fall back like the frog? 
What if some incident occurred which would ordinarily 
drive you to rage, would you Rage? Would you slip back 
to the bottom of the well into the muddy water? This 
temptation is humanity's "Waterloo." 

The thousands of tests conducted in occult and psy- 
chological laboratories have proven conclusively that, when 
under the direction of the will, the mind constantly creates 
one of two kinds of forces : one which aids us in pushing on- 
ward toward attaining our cherished ideal, while the other 
aids or pushes us backwards. It creates an occult substance 
out of which your success is possible, probable and easily at- 
tained when psychic laws are conformed to, while the other 
substance created actually defeats us in our purpose. When 
responding to the wishes of a perverted will it creates 
energies, or poisonous forces within us which plow deep 
paths of sorrow, from which we cannot extricate ourselves ; 
ruts of trouble which we boldly and deliberately chose. In 
contrast to this, when under a wiser direction of the Will, 
it creates a substance which opens to us through the tele- 
scopic vision of the soul, a view of the heavens ; or creates 
with equal ease a force which sinks us into the deep sor- 
rowful pits of hell, or the dark abyssmal pits of remorse. 
The hand of God cannot prevent you. You may choose 
freely but you must pay the price; receive your well earned 
reward afterward. 



46 SELF MASTERY 

An Uncrowned King Discovered. 

In choosing the wiser and happier Way, one of the 
first steps reveals the necessity of renouncing the old, or 
the new becomes elusive. The moment you have renounced 
misfortune, failure and sorrow as having no normal, natural 
place in your life, and you have vowed to turn your back 
on these grewsome things forever that you are going to 
claim the riches to which every normal soul on Earth is 
entitled, then never turn back! Don't even look back if 
possible! Every time you look back or turn back, you just 
jump back into the well, and will have to pass through the 
same struggle in your tortuous climb again. 

Many of those who have achieved such wonderful suc- 
cess in unfolding and utilizing their psychic forces, are 
those who have endured great sorrows, heartbreaking dis- 
appointments, and those who have met with depressing fail- 
ures. Those having passed through great misfortune seem 
more appreciative of their birthright when they rediscover 
themselves, and for this reason are more successful when 
they do, because they have learned the lesson at the ex- 
pense of breaking health or heart ; learned the terrible price 
one must pay for the luxury of wrong thinking; learned 
the true value of wisely loving ones self, which attitude re- 
sults in a nobler love of God. 

In seeking to follow the light which ever shines from 
your own soul, follow the example left us by the immortal 
Columbus. In looking over the record of his voyage, we 
read: "Today, we sailed west — which was our course." 
Turning the record page for the next day's sailing you will 
find : "Today we sailed west, which was our course." Turn- 
ing page after page of the record of that wonderful voyage, 



SELF MASTERY 47 

with all its terrible hardships, you will read: "Today, we 
sailed west, which was our course." 

In your journey down the beautiful Occult Way of life 
let your lights be burning; your motto ever be, "Today, I 
lived, acted, thought, and evolved in the right direction, for 
this is my course" 

In following the new light, it will be necessary that you 
be on the alert ever constantly to exercise divine purpose; 
ever in the same direction; and the moment you begin to 
realize your own divine attributes, your nearness to the 
powers which create every good thing we have, love, or 
enjoy, then the world will take on another hue, and look 
more beautiful than it ever did before. 

The moment you look upon yourself rightly; love self 
as you should with a divine appreciation of your own soul, 
then you will begin to honor your body as your temple ; the 
temporary abiding place of an immortal soul. You will 
respect yourself as never before, and the world will pay 
you an equal tribute of additional respect. 

"Be noble and the nobleness which lies in other men, 
but sleeping, will rise to meet thine own." 

Confidence in the nobleness of the Majestic Self, and a 
confidence in others is one of the grandest assets one can 
possess. Without confidence, no one accomplishes anything 
great or worthy. If you have no confidence in Self, the 
world will have no confidence in you. People will place the 
same value on you at which you value yourself. Take away 
a man's confidence, courage, hope, and enthusiasm, and 
you haven't much left. It is estimated by persons com- 
petent to judge that there are thirty thousand persons in 
New York City whose confidence in self is completely de- 
stroyed ; persons who are past being helped in this incarna- 
tion, because the will has been broken, destroyed ; hope has 



48 SELF MASTERY 

been annihilated, and therefore they can be of no use to 
humanity, and only a misery to themselves. None of this 
vast number can be trusted to be sent a block on an errand. 
Not that they are inherently dishonest, but because circum- 
stances have conspired to crush, and kill all confidence in 
self. It has broken down the will, in which condition all 
sense of obligation, trust, and honor become dead. Verily 
"A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance; but a 
broken spirit drieth up the bones." 

That person therefore, who robs you of your confidence 
in self, destroys your belief in your own ability to attain 
some cherished hope or ideal, and thereby deals a death blow 
to your courage, count that person your enemy. Think 
kindly of him. Forgive him; but turn your back to him, 
and be more cautious as to where you place your pearls. 

The miracle of self confidence and enthusiasm has 
brought a crowning success a million times, out of the 
world's scrap heaps and discarded wrecks, when chrystal- 
ized opinion declared that only additional disaster and loss 
could come of further efforts in that direction. Confidence 
and enthusiasm grow the rose where stood the poisonous 
nettle. It produces fields of golden grain in the impassible 
deserts, when all, "the wise ones" said that the enthusiast 
was a fool. 

Self confidence, supplemented by a smiling enthusi- 
asm, puts armies over the Alps, discovers new countries, 
crosses unknown seas, wins happiness and success where 
the pessimists say "Impossible." Faith and self confidence 
enable one to behold himself as God beholds him; a soul 
with creative immortal attributes. It gives him back his 
divine birthright. 

Every thought we think not only affects our own body 
and brain structure, but also that of others. Those subtle 



SELF MASTERY 49 

thought-waves are carried out into space like the waves 
of the wireless telegraph, where they are picked up, and 
acted upon by other persons who may be hundreds of miles 
away. Who can estimate the awful tragedies enacted by 
misguided souls, whose initial incentive to commit crime 
was born in the brain of some one else — perhaps hundreds 
of miles away? Who can estimate it! Thoughts which the 
original thinker flattered himself that no one knew but 
himself; and yet those supposedly secret thoughts took 
wings, and ended their journey by falling into some fertile 
soil ; the brain of a misguided brother. In a moment of blind 
rage, an awful tragedy was committed! How well there- 
fore, should we guard our "mental creations." How won- 
derfully true, that to an appalling degree, "We are our 
brother's keeper." 

What the world needs today more than any other one 
thing is genuine kindness ; that kindness which is born of a 
wise love of self, and a true love for all humanity. The 
world is hungering for smiles, for kindness, for love. It 
is craving to view more of the flowers beautiful in the gar- 
den of our thoughts and mental creations. It needs the 
gentle hand extended to help and to encourage the brother 
who, perhaps has failed in any one of the score of ways 
where a false step means a temporary defeat, or a crush- 
ing failure. To encourage and help such an one gives you 
a courage and a power with which to meet the new prob- 
lems of your own life which you did not have before; and a 
strength which you can not get otherwise. 

Kindness to the stranger, to the friend, or to the foe 
pays one a handsome dividend. Dollars can never estimate 
it. 

True encouragement and a wise sympathy smooths 
down the rough and rocky bumps of life. It takes the sting 



50 SELF MASTERY 

out of failure; adds courage and confidence to the heart 
which needs them, and reveals the true meaning of, "more 
blessed to give than to receive." 

In as much as Nature has implanted in the soul a 
longing to attain ; to have and to possess health, happiness 
and plenty, a desire naturally manifests itself for more 
specific direction as to definite procedure in evolving these 
rightful riches. To which question the answer is that, no 
definite rule covering the needs of every one can be given 
because the same definite rule will not work for everyone 
alike. The reason for this is found in the fact that ages 
of false training prevents us from being able (any group 
of persons) to reason alike, even with the same facts be- 
fore them. Hardly two persons can be found who reason 
alike. A generally specific rule however, is applicable to 
every one who feels the call to higher and better things. 
If you are brooding over failure of any kind, stop it at 
once. It serves only as a millstone around your neck, and 
will drag you down deeper into the pitiable mire of help- 
lessness. Toss it aside forever. Bury the memory of it 
if possible, and look the world in the face squarely, and 
yourself likewise. Congratulate yourself that it wasn't 
worse; that you are wiser in that you know what not to 
do again, and try to put yourself for the time being, in tune 
with the song of the birds. Start all over again with a 
clean slate. Determine to close your eyes to the past, and 
open your soul wide to the eternal present and the brighter 
future, and you will start out realizing that you are either 
a new creature, or you have laid hold upon some new power ; 
that some new life giving power has laid hold of you. One 
may not be able to do this in a moment, or an hour, al- 
though many do; but a great reward will crown honest 
effort and a determination. Perseverance will win for you. 



SELF MASTERY 51 

If that accursed demon of envy has barricaded itself 
within your sanctuary, then with one mighty, determination, 
root it out. Every time you see it coming near you, give 
it a stony stare, and turn your back. 

If you hate ; if you hold revenge ; if you are harboring 
some green-eyed monster, turn such a demon out without 
any ceremony. Desert them; and without your encourag- 
ing hand to feed them they will soon die of themselves. 
Such curses are the distress and remorse producers of the 
world. They are fiery, treacherous, life-consuming devils; 
so paralyzing and deadly that they endanger life. Often 
the losing of one's life is the price one pays for reveling in 
their gore. It is an expensive luxury,. 

If one's life has been such that false thinking has filled 
his brain, mind and soul with noxious thoughts and venom- 
ous weeds and he is unable to see the Light Eternal when 
face to face with it ; and if one finds that he can't rid him- 
self of the oppressive rubbish under which his soul seems 
weighted, the trouble may be that he is trying to create a 
vacuum by trying desperately to put the demons all out, 
and leaving nothing in the space occupied by them. A 
vacuum has never been created, and never can be. You 
can not remove anything from its position without leaving 
something in its place; and until you begin to learn to 
crowd these demons out by gently bringing some other 
more welcome guests in, you will not succeed. 

The secret is a process of substitution. One must 
force out the evil creations and disease producing thoughts, 
by a combination of starvation, by neglect, and by enlarging 
the group of noble ideals, and refusing to see, think of, or 
entertain the old, destructive, depressive thoughts. The 
new, and the good soon grow to occupy such a large space 
in your soul that there is almost no room left for the false, 



52 SELF MASTERY 

or evil. The demon thought creations which have long 
held dominion are now squeezed into a space so small that 
they quickly die of themselves. 

Encourage the growth of the good within, at the ex- 
pense of evil. Never looking at the evil will cause it to 
wither away; dwarf itself into insignificance, until finally 
it occupies an infinitesimal space in the mind; "good" will 
have "overcome evil," while Divine Law — The Light Eternal 
is left in control Supreme. This is a most vital law, and 
applies to all occult attainment, it matters not in what 
field of endeavor the effort may be. 

Numerous books which have received recognition, are 
filled with false and inexplicit teaching on many of the 
most vital points. Several lectures of prominence are like- 
wise doing much harm in the same manner. 

While attempting to create success in health, business, 
development, or the many other worthy aims, negative 
creations are formed by hundreds of persons, who honestly 
strive to attain. The reason for their failure is found in 
their "creating energy," which begins to evolve in both 
directions unconsciously as a result of holding to, thinking 
of, and constantly reverting to the thought or condition 
which is the opposite of that for which they really long. 
This difficulty of tearing down as fast as one builds up 
must be overcome, by the masterful determination of 
"Thinking in the one direction, and holding the divine love 
ideal of self and humanity ever uppermost." 

Worry and fear are two of the most senseless world 
wide curses. Worry never benefitted any one, but brings 
trouble, sorrow, sickness, and disaster to thousands. If 
you are a victim of worry, and you wish to progress with 
the higher forces, you positively will have to eliminate it. 
It is another expensive accursed luxury and none can afford 



SELF MASTERY 53 

to pay the toll it demands. Many say it is impossible to 
stop worrying. It is not impossible. Not being able to 
stop worrying is based upon the same law which enables 
others to stop the accursed habit. If you will just let go of 
yourself; let your muscles all relax and indulge in that 
sweet luxury of dreaming of the birds, the woods, the 
streams, God's beautiful flowers ; a trip through the clouds, 
through space, you will come back to yourself much re- 
freshed. If you doubt it, try it, and you will find that the 
thing over which you worried is no worse when you "re- 
turn" but you will be the better. Your worrying will never 
stop the world from spinning along in its orbit nor will it 
stop anything for your benefit, or because you worry. If 
you doubt this also, worry it out for a while and when you 
do stop, the world will still be spinning along just the same. 

Enough cannot be said of the greater love of self. 
"Love thy neighbor as thy self," can never be understood 
rightly in that arrangement of words only by one who is 
familiar with the ancient Greek or comprehends early 
Hebrew expression. "As thou lovest thy dearest friend, 
love thou thyself also," is more nearly a correct translation 
of the original thought. 

How can one love God who loves not himself? If one 
cannot love that which he sees, how can he ever love that 
which he has not seen? Learn as never before to love and 
respect Self; respect your body, the temple in which the 
real You dwells. Your Temple should be held in sacred 
esteem. Do you esteem it such? One should love self with 
a pride divine, but with no false or foolish pride. Begin 
to look upon Self as an incarnate soul ; a God, if you choose. 
"Know ye not that ye are Gods?" If you regard holy writ, 
that quotation alone should settle the question. It casts 
a new ray of light on the philosophy of early Christianity. 



54 SELF MASTERY 

In the lifting of our lives to that plain of divine real- 
ization, we should ever keep before our vision that ever 
present law of divine compensation which shows us with 
an absolute certainty that, as fast as one begins to elimin- 
ate doubt, fear, revenge and envy from his heart, and sub- 
stitutes love, hope, faith, confidence, cheerfulness, and 
smiles real smiles from the heart itself; as fast as one be- 
comes able wisely to appreciate and lovingly to appropriate 
the gifts of the Soul; as fast as one seeks in the spirit of 
truth, to appropriate his divine birthright, just that fast 
and no faster, all things whatsoever one desires will be 
"added unto you," be it success in business, in music, in 
the home life, in love, or in the thousand avenues or de- 
partments of life in which one's hopes may lead. Never lose 
sight of the value of "Sailing west, which was our course" 
— sailing onward in the one positive, unalterable direction. 
Looking backward or down, is dangerous and should be 
religiously avoided. 

If you seek to add to self the richer joys of life; if you 
seek the world's blessing, or to obtain that which the world 
in general may say comes to those who are selfish enough, 
one must become wisely and whole heartedly unselfish; 
wishing from the depths of his heart, every possible suc- 
cess in every way, to all people everywhere, and out of the 
abundance of such unselfish love waves which you launch 
into space is created all that one's heart could seek; that 
which you have cast out into the great ocean of Creative 
Supply in waves of loving thoughts will return to you, 
laden with riches. The measure will be full and running 
over. 

Remember, however, one all important law ! Every 
time you try to get even with some one for some real or 
imagined wrong, you will be the one most injured at the 



SELF MASTERY 55 

finish. Two wrongs never made a right; they never can, 
never did, and never will. It is a thing which carries a 
bitter and terrible boomerang with it, which will sooner 
or later hit the sender harder than was originally intended 
for the victim. 

If you will but reflect a moment on your own life, or 
on the life of others whom you have known, you will see 
how the life of the "Revenge seeker" has been dwarfed, 
bruised, punished, and cursed by his own Venomous stings. 
The law can't fail. Many who hear this have paid an awful 
price for blindly indulging in revenge. The very thought 
creation, and act itself, carries within it an unfailing reflex 
action, which shoots your own arrows back at you with an 
accurate aim, and the arrows carry a more deadly venom 
than you sent. Nor can you escape its blow. It is impossi- 
ble to avoid it, because it is justice meted out to you in that 
you must "reap what you sow." It is impossible to harbor 
revenge in your heart, and not suffer a frightful loss. 

Another important metaphysical secret is that subtle 
something which comes to one who has learned and mas- 
tered the meaning of "loving your enemies; doing good to 
those who despise you; and praying for those who hate 
you." Some day, some where, some time, you will have to 
learn it. 

A Glimpse of the Light Eternal. 

That the reader may be the better armed to win in 
the battle for Mastery over Self, it is desirable here to ex- 
press certain thought vibrations which will set in motion 
certain specific forces which may find a quick response in 
the heart of the reader ; thoughts which eventually come to 
brighten the life of every one who delves deeply into the 



56 SELF MASTERY 

mystic side of things, and to all who have eagerly, earnestly 
sought light on the great questions of life ; sought glimpses 
of that Light Eternal, from whence the Soul came, and 
whither it goeth. All who have listened wisely, long and 
faithfully to the voice of the Master, and have hearkened 
to the wisdom which always comes to them from out of 
the depths of the Soul, if it is earnestly sought there soon 
is revealed that beautiful truth that there is but one 
road; one way to genuine happiness; one way to love and 
contentment and that way is Nature's way; that Nature's 
way is God's way; and that God's way is the only way. 
All other roads are full of lions, and lead to the abyss of 
remorse. These conclusions are self evident and are ar- 
rived at by all who patiently and faithfully seek out the 
mysteries of the Soul, and the meaning of life, the will of 
nature, and the pleasure of God. 

Within your Temple, your body, or somewhere within 
the Soul that dwells within, there resides a power, a light 
which, if man were not hampered and perverted by false 
teachings, would so brightly illumine the path of life, that 
he who hearkened, need have no fear of falling into the 
treacherous "abysses" during his journey of unfoldment 
here on Earth. Were we not perverted by false religious 
doctrines, "That still small voice within" would unfailingly 
give warning of the "lions," and whisper to us the great 
truths of our divinity. It would ever remind us that we 
are endowed with Godly attributes; that we can choose our 
lives, and just what we will be, although we may need 
some wiser and perhaps kindlier hand than our own to help 
us get started rightly, just at the right time. This "willing 
hand" will always be found when we honestly seek the 
light, for those who have "found it" are only glad to lend 
aid to the "worthy" or "distressed brother" or sister who 



SELF MASTERY 57 

is trying to qualify to "seek more light." Have no fear, 
for then your own will come to you. When we approach 
near the deeper shadows cast by that light divine which 
lighteth every man that cometh into the world, we discover 
that man is free to choose evil, or to follow good ; that when 
we choose evil we must sooner or later pay whatever it 
demands; pay here, now, on Earth, and not necessarily in 
some misty future life. We learn that the Maker and 
Giver of every good gift denies no man the power to do 
wrong ; but when he does elect to do wrong, sins against the 
laws of his own soul; against the unalterable laws of God, 
that one carries right within him, a power which auto- 
matically administers a just punishment. This adminis- 
trator of punishment is right within his own being; and 
to escape its decrees is impossible. We learn that God him- 
self will not prevent us from doing wrong — nor does He 
save us from administering our self-merited punishment. 
The penalty is unavoidable. 

There is a much more beautiful thought however about 
this unescapable Master who seems cruelly just, and justly 
cruel, which at once commends itself even to those who try 
hardest to avoid paying its toll. It is that beautiful truth 
that somewhere reposing within the secret chambers of 
the soul of each one of us, awaits a potent power which, 
some day, some time, somewhere, somehow, will at last 
purify us, and work our final redemption. It may perhaps, 
be today; tomorrow; next week; next month; next year. 
It may be ten years; it may be fifty years; a hundred years. 
If you persist in evil ways it may be five hundred years, in 
another life; or in another life,* or yes, in yet another life; 
it may be a thousand years or ten thousand years. 

One stupendous unalterable truth the eternal Light 
reveals to those who have sought it is that, somewhere, 



58 SELF MASTERY 

somehow, sometime, that eternal redemptive power within 
the soul itself will finally win out; will corner you. You 
will finally corner yourself, will meet yourself face to face, 
and there decide your fate. You will some day decide that 
there is no use longer to resist God's ways; you will auto- 
matically whip yourself with the result of evil, until at 
last you will have run your course. You will have decided 
that breaking the laws of Nature, — the laws of God — is but 
another name for slowly and wilfully administering the 
most cruel self torture. You will then see that "as you 
sow, you must reap." It will have a new meaning. At 
last you will see that there is but one way and that is 
Nature's way ; the soul's way ; God's way, and in that dark- 
est hour of your soul's existence, when you will have 
reached the lowest point of your choice, you will open your 
eyes and there will still be shining for you the "light eter- 
nal," offering as it has for thousands of years, to point the 
way, and that day you will find "your Father's house" open ; 
his beautiful joys awaiting you and with these things 
spread before you, that "redemptive power within" will 
begin anew. You will decide to live in harmony with your 
own laws, and thus you will finally redeem yourself; will 
have mastered Self, and will enter into the fullness of the 
blessings which, as the Prophet of old hath said are "pre- 
pared for you from the foundation of the world." In that 
day all life ; all people ; all creatures everywhere will reveal 
to you a new meaning of God ; His smiles will be seen even 
in the face of your enemies, and perhaps for the first time 
in years, or even centuries, you will have tasted happiness. 
Finally as this redemptive power within unfurls, there 
will arrive a period in your evolution at which you will 
have shaken off layer after layer; crust after crust; one 
false shell after another until you will have shaken off the 



SELF MASTERY 59 

last vestige of impurity which retards and blinds the soul, 
and then you will be revealed unto yourself, a living God; 
a creature divine, with life eternal; life everlasting; pre- 
pared to enter that existence in which life, love, and happi- 
ness in all its beautiful conceptions are without end. In 
that period will be heard many to say, "Behold, evil hath 
driven me to redeem myself." 



60 SELF MASTERY 



CHAPTER III. 

Success and its Price. 

What success mean to one, would in no manner mean 
success to another. That for which one person may strive 
unceasingly as the only thing which will make his life 
happy, may in no way, appeal to another. A definition for 
the word Success is not necessarily a matter of accumulat- 
ing dollars. This is proven by the facts printed in the pub- 
lic press every day. 

Recently a man who had accumulated two millions of 
dollars remarked that he was just beginning to realize that 
he was a poor man — poor in that for which his soul had 
longed, and which he believed the accumulation of gold 
would bring. He awoke to the delusion, and found that his 
millions left a terrible emptiness, a hungering and a longing 
in his heart, which money failed to alleviate. To others the 
meaning of success is the attaining of happiness, and with 
them, the element of money has little place, for the reason 
that their home lives are simple and void of all pomp or 
false pride. Viewing their lives from the money stand- 
point, they are satisfied with the few dollars which they 
earn honestly each month. The success which they crave 
may be the attainment of some ideal in study, in art or 
the companionship of one who will understand them; one 
who can sympathize with their aims, their hopes, plans or 
ideals. 

Success in any one chosen thing can never be attained 
except by paying an honest price, but not necessarily a 



SELF MASTERY 61 

price in dollars. There is a law of compensation pervading 
the whole universe which tells us it is impossible to get 
something for nothing, from the labor of another without 
injuring both parties. Things must be paid for with an 
honest price. 

To expect something for nothing is as bad as to have 
to work and never receive any pay for your time and effort. 
Both lead to poverty. When we receive something for noth- 
ing the law of compensation is broken and detrimental re- 
sults follow as surely as the night follows the day. 

A religion which costs you nothing is worth nothing. 
A philosophy which you get for nothing, is worth just that. 
If you obtain something of value and pay nothing for it, 
you can be certain that sooner or later you will pay the 
price or pay a greater price as a result of having violated 
this universal, omnipotent law. The law of compensation 
assures us that we get out of life just what we put into it, 
that we are the result of what we have thought. It en- 
courages us with its promise, that the more truth you place 
in the hands of others, the more will the law of compensa- 
tion give you in return for your efforts. In no other law 
is the reward of compensation more apparent. 

Success or failure in any field of endeavor, follows a 
law which is as fixed and unfailing as the law of mathe- 
matics. Failure to succeed is caused by an internal oppo- 
sition ; an opposition within yourself. It may never be sus- 
pected or known by you, but its fruit you will reap just the 
same. Success never can come until this internal resistance 
is overcome. If such resistance within is retarding our 
progress, attainment or success, it becomes our highest duty 
to make our inner selves the object of an untiring search 
for the obstacle, or the resistance, and then remove it, no 
matter what the cost in effort. 



62 SELF MASTERY 

There is a law running all through nature which tells 
us that like always produces like ; or that like attracts like. 
It is as true from the harvest we reap, from the kind of 
thought we plant in our mental or psychic garden as it is 
elsewhere in nature. There is no escape from natural law 
and its results. The kind of harvest we reap, measured 
by success, health or happiness, is determined by this un- 
changing law. The quality and the kind of seed we have 
sown, and the kind of care we have taken of the growing 
crops, will determine the final reaping. 

The entire philosophy of occult Science is based upon 
the same laws of common sense which determine finalities 
elsewhere in the natural world. 

In the animal and vegetable world, men would never 
think of violating the well known laws and expect anything 
other than a violated, mixed, unsatisfactory result. We 
would not think of planting corn and expecting to reap a 
harvest of grapes. Instead of that we follow fixed, wejl 
known and certain laws which, for thousands of years, have 
proved that "Like produces like." This law is absolutely 
true in either the mental, animal, vegetable or psychic 
world. 

In the kingdom of flowers and vegetables, if we wisn 
beautiful plants, splendid specimens, we do not grow them 
too closely together. We remove every weed, spear of grass, 
and unwelcome intruder. The soil is kept perfectly clean. 
As soon as an unwelcome weed is discovered, no matter 
how small it may be, it is removed at once for we know 
that it robs the soil of strength, and saps the flower of 
vitality, thereby reducing its strength, dwarfing its growth, 
and marring its beauty. If the weeds are not kept out, 
they will soon destroy the whole garden. 



SELF MASTERY 63 

If you had a garden of choice flowers started and you 
discovered a poisonous weed among them which was rob- 
bing them of strength and threatened to destroy them, your 
only thought would be to destroy the weed; to tear it out 
root and branch, at once. 

The lesson is practical. Take it to heart; apply it to 
your own life. Let us have fewer seeds planted in our 
mental garden, and let us cultivate them carefully. Let 
us bar out or overcome all the stray or undesirable tramp 
thoughts, and keep our eyes ever open, and ourselves pre- 
pared to root out the unproductive, undesirable weeds as 
fast as they are discovered creeping in. This law is abso- 
lutely true in the mental and psychic world as it is in the 
animal and vegetable kingdom. 

In the mental kingdom, common sense is seldom in- 
voked. Procedure in this realm has been so haphazard for 
ages, that we deliberately sow thistles and expect to reap 
oranges. We sow envy, hate, jealousy and all sorts of 
whimsical seeds and expect to reap success and a crop of 
happiness. Because the seeds do not grow, we become dis- 
gusted and hurl invective at random because the crop is 
not of love, beauty, and riches, thus making our plight only 
the worse because of the shackling vampire mental creations 
which we thereby set loose into space to prey on ourselves 
or others, later. We fly into a rage, tear the mental garden 
up, and plant something else. Consequently our mental 
and spiritual gardens are always in the plowing and plant- 
ing stage. Neither task is ever half done. If the haphazard 
seeds are left to grow, we find lemons awaiting us when 
perhaps we had all along taken it for granted that a rose 
ought to be given us; but we reaped just what we sowed. 
We got what our efforts earned. King Compensation por- 
tioned us our share; our just deserts, in kind and quality. 



64 SELF MASTERY 

Honesty,, cheerfulness, optimism, confidence, enthusi- 
asm, sincerity, justice, a respectful knowledge of this law 
of compensation, and a noble love of self, are the funda- 
mental ingredients which are necessary to produce a well 
balanced success. 

The pessimist who carries gloom and depressing clouds 
about with him, is as dangerous as the black damp. Avoid 
him. The pessimist cannot see like the optimist for he 
has cataracts on his eyes and things do not look right. He 
"sees things" but in the wrong light, for he is color blind, 
and this only adds to his danger. He does not see life as 
it is, or facts as they are. He is about as welcome as the 
ague. He brings as much happiness as a shaking chill. 
However, Compensation does not overlook him. It never 
overlooks anything or anybody, not even the greatest or 
the smallest ; the best or the worst ; the highest or the low- 
est of any of the creatures of this planet. It is the great 
law of balance ; the law which evens things up. It keeps an 
eternal vigil. Nothing escapes its eye. We may break any 
of the man made laws and never be punished, but as for 
the laws of balance, or the laws of justice, of right or 
wrong ; as for the laws of nature ; the laws of self ; the laws 
of the divinity; the laws of God; for breaking these there 
is no escape. 

Wise old Compensation never sleeps. Compensation 
has a wonderful memory. It never forgets the most trivial 
events, either good or bad. It would seem that some people 
are successful in direct violation of this law, and escape for 
a long time, but it gets them at last, and it always brings 
a suitable reward. 

We sometimes envy the "Harrimans," the "Morgans," 
and "Astors," and their millions, but this wise old law 
whispers in our ears words of good cheer, and bids us notice 



SELF MASTERY 65 

that the drawn face of the "Harrimans" have no smiles, 
and that they know little of real happiness. 

The law of Compensation is a law of the soul. It is 
the law of all souls, whether good or bad. We carry a law 
of compensation within us which records every thought 
and act, and sees to it that we are rewarded handsomely, or 
at least rewarded justly. It deals us back just what we have 
earned. It shows us that it pays to be a real man or a 
real woman; that shams do not go far. It points out that 
shams may apparently run smoothly for awhile, but the 
sham gets his trouble from the start. Look at him or her 
a few years hence, and see how the Soul's law of Compen- 
sation has kept track; kept good account, and finally set- 
tled up things evenly. Hundred of cases may be cited 
where the sham has apparently evaded old King Compensa- 
tion for years; but at last they are dragged out into the 
limelight of shame and disgrace. Hundreds during the past 
year have taken their own lives to avoid the awful pangs 
of remorse. 

In seeking success therefore, there is a road which is 
sure, safe and certain ; and that road is beautifully lighted 
by man's inner conscience. It is an easy way, and the only 
road by which the goal may ever be safely reached. This 
road parallels the highway of Compensation. Its many 
lights teach us that poverty is a disease, an abnormal con- 
dition, an unnatural state; that the sons of God by nature 
cannot possibly reflect the distress of poverty, unless such 
distress comes as a result of having used the "talent" un- 
wisely. 

Compensation tells us that fear, worry, envy, hate, 
jealousy, shame, embarrassment, regret and the brooding 
over failure, are damning curses, awful vices, murderous 
luxuries which stand immovable, mountain barriers in the 



66 SELF MASTERY 

way. They are impassible, perpendicular walls which can 
be removed by one method only. Never can you attain the 
goal you seek and still harbor these curses. You cannot 
serve God and Mammon, and before you can behold and 
enjoy, the glorious light of the occult way, to attain the 
hopes on which your heart may be set, these barriers, these 
vampire Demons which so many of us dread to part with, 
must be overcome, mastered, slain; must be forsaken for- 
ever and left to die. This they will quickly do of themselves 
if you refuse to support them. 

How terribly impossible to reflect that Image Divine, 
or be a real man or a real woman while under the yoke of 
failure thought. How difficult to look the world squarely 
in the face and smile with that open sincerity as a child 
of this beautiful world system, when the curse of fear, the 
curse of the race, has clutched you in its poisonous, paralyz- 
ing tentacles. The poverty thought and the demon of fear 
crush one to earth under the weight of embarrassment and 
fear; shame ascends our psychic throne, and self respect 
almost disappear. There are a few rare heroic exceptions 
to this state of affairs, but it nevertheless remains true that 
poverty thought has made mental or moral cowards of most 
of us, if not psychic cowards. 

It places blinders over our eyes and makes it impossi- 
ble for us to see our inseparable connection with that great 
ocean of creative supply, which contains enough to clothe, 
feed and keep comfortable, a thousand times the present 
population of this world as royally as that of the happiest 
and healthiest person to be found on this planet; and then 
there would be an immense reserve supply. 

In striving to attain success we must at once abandon 
all vicious, bitter, revengeful, fear thoughts. They wring 
a sad tale from the hearts of men. Look at the careworn 



SELF MASTERY 67 

faces of little children who have been cursed by the hounds 
of fear since their birth. It stamps their little faces with 
age and care; weakens their hearts, and ruins their whole 
career. Fear robs children of all their real "childhood," 
so that they never know the pleasures of youth. The men- 
tal and physical creations of fear and poverty have dogged 
most of us since long before we were born. Unless we rid 
ourselves of them they will gnaw at our heels until death. 
True success and genuine happiness never can possibly 
come until we have overthrown these tyrants forever. 

Of all the useless, degrading views of a misguided race, 
fear is the worst. It blasts promising lives, ruins careers, 
wrecks reputations, destroys health, makes happiness im- 
possible, and what is more, ninety-eight per cent of all 
the things which you have worried about, for fear it 
might happen, never did happen. The worries which rent 
your nerves, weakened the heart, and produced so many 
other heart sickening conditions, were all for nothing. 

Refuse to tolerate a trend of thought or an emotion at 
any time unless it is to your happiness or success. 

What excuse can one have for reveling in sorrowful, 
depressing tales when to do so is to invite a growth of the 
same? Refuse to listen to any tale of depression unless 
some person is at that moment in distress, physical pain, 
or imminent danger, and needs assistance. Force yourself 
deliberately to cultivate just such habits of thought as you 
would wisely choose, and then practice it regularly until 
the mental habit is formed. It will then become "second 
nature," while at first it may seem drudgery. 

It is impossible for us to think one thing and be an- 
other. The tramp thinks "tramp thoughts." The happy, 
contented man thought of happiness. The successful busi- 
ness man, business thoughts. We cannot harbor depressing 



68 SELF MASTERY 

thoughts of fear and failure, five hours a day and of success 
another five hours a day, and ever advance or succeed 
except in the wrong direction. Thinking of failure, sor- 
row or of the sorrows of someone else, is to throw down 
your guards, and extend an open invitation to those forces 
to start a growth of these same destructive creations within 
yourselves. 

Can a Christian, or a godly man, think constantly of 
lewd, low, mean, cruel, vulgar things day after day, and 
still be holy, pure, and good? How quickly can the least 
informed answer that question correctly. How quickly 
anyone can detect those thoughts when they begin to mani- 
fest in the physical form, in the expression of the face, in 
the eye, in the manner, by words, actions, deeds. One 
"rotten apple" will pollute a whole barrel of apples. Can 
one ever hope for success if he goes around with a long 
face, dreading failure, looking failure, feeling that he can- 
not afford this or do that, because of the dread of coming 
to want or meeting with bad luck? Can one behold the 
beauties of the rising sun by looking west, or with your 
eyes closed? It is as impossible to find success while disre- 
garding these mental laws as it is natural and certain for 
one to succeed when he begins to think and act in the right 
manner, governing his thought creations to conform to the 
law of success. Your hopeful, bouyant, optimistic, en- 
thusiastic, confidential attitude turns loose and sets in mo- 
tion, powerful occult forces which constantly assist in 
building the very thing you seek. Here again we see the 
great immutable, unfailing law, Compensation, at work. 

Picture, if you will, a man in business who carries the 
picture of failure always stamped in his face ; the merchant 
who dresses as a failure, assumes the air of a man who is 
a failure. How long will it require for him to reach the 



SELF MASTERY 69 

goal of Success ? Would you feel like making a second pur- 
chase of him if this were his attitude while waiting upon 
his customers? Most anyone can see how quickly this 
would affect his patrons ; and also see the effect of this sort 
of logic ; but many of us fail to grasp its wondrous reversing 
possibilities. How well one likes to purchase where every 
one looks prosperous and assumes an air of prosperity, and 
acts like normal beings. 

Personal appearance is a most important factor. 
"Dress and manners'' have far more to do with our success 
or failure than at first would be suspected. Determine once 
and forever therefore, to remove the last trace of anything 
from your personality which suggests failure. Avoid it in 
your manner, your clothes, your actions, your voice, words 
and appearances in your home. Assume a manner which 
suggests everything so contrary to the idea of failure, that 
for another person to have a thought of failure from your 
appearance or actions would be impossible. Turn your 
back upon the failure atmosphere forever. Throw off your 
old outer shell with a mighty effort. Away with the old! 
Put on the new ! Never slide back. The very act of turn- 
ing away from depression and failure in your mental and 
physical attitude, being determined never to return, will 
in itself, turn loose a power which will cut a way for you 
where the sign has always read "No road." 

"If you would attain a virtue, assume it." How well 
Shakespeare knew the law. Most actors know this same 
law in a limited sense — the power which personal appear- 
ance wields over an audience, when the actor is made up to 
act the part of a certain character. "Make up," is a won- 
derful factor in life. Its vibration has a wonderful effect, 
not only upon the audience, but upon the actor as well. If an 
actor's make-up is poor, it is almost impossible for him to 



70 SELF MASTERY 

play his part with what is known as a "magnetic effect." If 
he looks in a mirror while realizing that his make-up is 
bad, the effect upon himself is much more fatal. 

The power of color vibration in its effects as seen on 
animal life, vegetable life, or as it influences the mental 
or spiritual attitude and condition of health, have long been 
known by scientists. The government of United States and 
that of England conducted experiments which proved this 
law beyond all doubt. These experiments show that grape 
vines under the color vibration of the blue or purple ray 
produce twice as much fruit as under the ordinary sun- 
light, the fruit being almost as large again as the grape 
grown without the presence of the color ray. The experi- 
ment was conducted with two male calves, there being but 
a day's difference in their ages and both calves being large, 
and healthy. Both were fed alike, the same quality and 
quantity of food at the same time. They occupied pens 
side by side. One calf was sheltered under a roof which 
was made of pieces of violet colored glass. The sun was 
allowed to shine through this freely at all times ; while the 
other pen was arranged so that there was no shelter except 
during the rain or from intense heat. The experiment 
lasted for three months. At the end of the three months, the 
calf which was kept in the open was simply a normal, natu- 
ral, healthy, three months old calf. No larger or smaller 
than would be expected; while the calf kept under the in- 
fluence of the purple ray, was more than twice the size of 
the other calf, and manifested all the desires of a maturer 
bullock a year old. Hundreds of similar experiments were 
conducted with similar results. The same experiments 
have been tried with human beings, with almost unbelieve- 
able results. Certain colors of wall paper prove fatal to 
the patients who have certain diseases, and are confined in 



SELF MASTERY 71 

such rooms. However, this leads us into another vast field 
of investigation, which cannot be entered here. 

The savage, in all parts of the world, when getting 
ready for war, paints himself with certain combinations of 
red, blue, ochre, and black, as a necessary preliminary. 
When they face each other with these hideous "war paint," 
combinations, it arouses a spirit of bravery, even in the 
most cowardly, which so blinds them with rage, they will 
walk into the very jaws of death. Hideous "war paint," 
and still more hideous "dress" have been mighty factors 
mentioned by all our old Indian fighters. 

Could our own little boys play "Indian" successfully 
without their Indian war togs on, their feathers "painted" 
and "colored," and a suit to match? Watch them play their 
childish war game and see the effect upon them of "make 
up." 

This same law of color vibration in the clothes we wear 
affects not only ourselves, our bodies, and our thought 
creative forces, but it affects all with whom we come in 
contact. We must never lose sight of the effect and value 
of being well dressed. It is our "war paint." We feel dif- 
ferent when dressed up. Every one will admit this. When 
you are well dressed and you know you look pleasing, your 
clothes affect your mental forces; you raise up your head, 
push out your chest, brace back the shoulders. You do not 
look or feel like the same person. 

When you are well dressed, others instinctively feel 
your changed magnetic force at once. Then you have con- 
fidence in self and instantly that confidence is felt by others 
and men begin to have a confidence in you they did not 
have before. 

In no philosophy is the law of drill or repetition so 
necessary as in studying the laws of the soul; and it will 



72 SELF MASTERY 

here bear repeating again that people will never place a 
value on you, any greater than that which you place upon 
yourself. If you do not hold your head high, others will 
hold theirs above you. If your ambitions are no higher than 
the dust in the street, you can be sure that you will be con- 
stantly walked over by the crowd and never noticed. 

All the above illustrations and comparisons have been 
submitted with the hope that the student of the Occult Way 
may study the requirements of his own body, his own 
temple, in color vibration, most compatible and in harmony 
with that of his own soul. 

While it is true that "clothes do not make a man," it 
has so much to do with what the man is and does, that it 
cannot be overlooked. Some of us are color blind, others 
color ignorant, for which condition few of us are to blame ; 
yet this is no excuse for our not striving to ascertain what 
colors our bodies and minds require. 

In seeking success never lose sight of this factor. If 
you feel that you are poor, cannot afford to dress well, you 
must dress as well as you possibly can, and your new hope- 
ful vibrations will immediately begin to help you. The 
vibration of your clothes and of your home surroundings 
are bound to tell upon you. There is no escape from it. 
Wear the best clothes you can afford. Expend your money 
freely but judiciously and give it careful, optimistic con- 
sideration, and the investment will return you a handsome 
profit. Remember that no one can do his best or even well, 
who lives in a hovel, dresses meanly, starves his body, or 
lets his soul go hungry. 

There is a spiritual dress, a "Soul's Suit" about the 
body which is seen and felt by others, and he who culti- 
vates it to a pleasing degree, has something in his suit 
which no tailor can give. Its mysterious something is 



SELF MASTERY 73 

seen when the back is turned. Its charming vibrations are 
felt throughout your whole being when you shake hands 
with such a one. 

Look not lightly upon the power of pleasure. It is 
worthy of your most serious attention. If you make a mil- 
lion in a year, and wreck your health so that you cannot 
enjoy what you have made, what have you gained? 

To deny self of all pleasures, to let your soul live in a 
half starved body, and deny yourself every luxury, and 
get along in the cheapest and poorest sort of things, is to 
cripple and dwarf your very soul. If one has sacrificed 
every pleasure in the mad rush for wealth, and after attain- 
ing wealth, finds that life holds no charms for him, that his 
horded gold cannot bring back the power to laugh, to smile, 
to enjoy; when one finds that his health is gone, what then 
has his wealth availed him? 

To deprive yourself of all amusements because you 
"cannot afford it," and never to know recreation and joyous 
exhiliration which it brings to mind and body, all in order 
that you may lay up a few dollars, is surely because of no 
love you bear for self. This is a love of gold, but not of 
God. 

Never deprive yourself of the gratification of your 
finer tastes. To do so is to bemean and brutalize and stifle 
the expression of all the best things within you. God 
shows his ideas of dress in the beautiful flowers, in the 
splendor with which he has pictured the starry heavens; 
of beauty as disclosed in the rose and the indescribable lily. 
To further teach us the lesson of God's idea of His children 
beautifying themselves, He paints millions of other beauti- 
ful flowers in colors of pleasing nameless hues, and still 
other beautiful scenes of nature with robes which bring joy 



74 SELF MASTERY 

to the eye. The very breath of the flower brings sudden 
outbursts of inspiring pleasure to the soul. 

Take this lesson into your own life. You, too, are one 
of God's creations; one of God's children. He has taken 
more thought for you than for the lily of the field. God 
wants you to encourage all the finer tastes of your nature, 
never be afraid to show your finer feelings, and a proper 
love of self. Keep your heart, mind, soul and body as sweet, 
well cared for and as pure as possible, and you will reap 
God's smiles and a happiness and success in life which you 
have not even dreamed of before. 

Cheapness is a mania which comes from the thought 
currents of fear, and of failure. Avoid cheap things, cheap 
and common ideas. Cheapness will bring you cheapness 
as like draws or creates like. Cheap things have been made 
by poorly paid, weak, half starved, ill treated persons, often 
enslaved children, and the vibrations of this curse will fol- 
low the product. Leave cheap articles alone. Do not en- 
courage or assist in making possible the continuation of a 
curse which keeps half starved human beings at work un- 
der conditions equal to the worst slavery, by your patroniz- 
ing cheap places, or looking for cheap articles. 

Cheap articles, cheap places, cheap, unworthy ideas 
carry with them an inescapable venom which exacts from us 
its price. 

If you live in a hovel you are carrying the hovel thought 
vibrations in your psychic aura, which will work a con- 
scious or an unconscious depression on those whom you 
meet, and it will rebound back again to self. 

Being stingy with self, depriving self of the pleasant 
things of life will quickly show itself. 

Live first class. If you cannot possibly live first class 
live as neatly, tidily, and with as many little luxuries as 



SELF MASTERY 75 

you can arrange. Treat yourself as a royal guest — not 
one day, but each day. Be a prince, a king, a queen. If 
you have been drawn into these destructive currents of 
thought which drag their victims down into the stream 
of failure, and you feel that it is impossible for you to af- 
ford to dress well, then dress as cleanly as you can. "Clean- 
liness is next to Godliness/' and "a cake of soap is a stepping 
stone toward heaven." Ever hold that vision before you in 
which you see yourself dressed in spotless clothes of the 
latest and best quality. It is impossible to go some place 
without starting, without a beginning of the journey. Make 
a start. Start right. Get off on the right foot. Make 
an honest, sincere effort. Do the best you can. Your ef- 
fort, though it may seem poor, weak and ineffective to you 
in the beginning, yet it will begin to have a telling effect 
from the very start. Silently demand in a prayerful con- 
sciousness, of the great Infinite God, as your natural herit- 
age. "All that my father hath is mine," because you and 
I are children of the father, and like the father; of the 
same creative attributes as the father, and directly re- 
lated to and connected with the greatest creative source 
of supply in the universe. Do not forget that while God 
sends the sunshine and the rain on the just and the unjust 
that, there are many other blessings which he witholds 
from all except those who do His will. He is just like 
our fathers and mothers in that the children who are dis- 
obedient do not share the confidence and gifts of those who 
are obedient, dutiful, considerate and true. 

With this optimistic, loving, kindly determined mental 
and spiritual attitude, with fear conquered, with worry and 
doubt eliminated and with a reasonable amount of zealous, 
honest, worthy effort on your part, wade in! and the world 
is yours. You will be wondrously rewarded. 



76 SELF MASTERY 

The quicker we adjust ourselves to the Occult Way — 
God's way, the more quickly will we succeed. This is not 
a world of haphazard chance. Happiness, riches, love, 
honor are evolved from mental and psychic conditions or 
attitude, which are as never failing as the law which causes 
the water to flow from the mountain to the sea. Thought 
currents are as real as currents of electricity, and if you 
comply with the harmonious requirements of this infinite 
law of your own being, all that you seek shall be yours. 
Failure to comply with this law spells failure for you and 
for your aims in life. The quicker we learn, the better for 
us, that we are divinely related to, and forever inseparable 
from, the infinite creative supply of the universe. 

The moment you feel that you are not in touch with 
the rightful supply station, that moment you become 
obsessed with a fear; with a consciousness of your own 
weakness; a sort of childish helplessness. You are a law 
unto yourself; a world, a universe. The lever which con- 
trols it is to be found right within. It is all within our own 
control; by realizing our own infinite attributes, and by 
cheerfully, optimistically, enthusiastically, positively claim- 
ing and demanding your own, as your divine and lawful 
rights, in the right mental attitude ; and then optimistically 
getting busy to do all you can by honest genuine effort, 
towards bringing it to pass. No power in this world can 
resist, retard, or keep down a man or woman who is moved 
to do by such a combined force as this. 

Be cheerful under all circumstances, no matter what 
happens. Being otherwise cannot help you or the situation 
and will only make both worse. Fear, anger and pessimism 
strangle the forces which will give you what you seek, pro- 
viding you keep the channels cleared of these life destroy- 
ing demons. 



SELF MASTERY 77 

The Nazarene prophet was the most practical man 
the world has ever known. He was not a dreamer. If we 
could only drop all the foolishness which has been en- 
grafted into our souls about Him and listen to His own 
words of wisdom, with half that degree of attention which 
we gladly give to a "Rockefeller," or a "Morgan," in the 
business world, the world's problem of sadness, disease, 
struggles and strife, would have been solved centuries ago 
and disease would long since have vanished. "Overcome evil 
with good." How simple, and yet how direct that com- 
mand. That apparently simple injunction contains the 
only solution by which evil will ever be overcome. All at- 
tempts to apply any other rule or principle results in the 
creation of more evil, and only complicates the existing 
trouble. 

What would you think or say of a man who owned a 
great farm which was subject to overflow from a nearby 
river, which destroyed his buildings and crops, and who 
would go to the head-gates of a dam nearby, and turn more 
rushing torrents of water into the farm, with the idea that 
he would thereby drive away the river water with the water 
from the great dam. There is no doubt as to what your 
opinion would be. Have you never thought of how this 
same principle works in the thought world? Fear never 
can be overcome by fright. Hate, spite, revenge or the 
death dealing forces of rage can never be overcome by re- 
taliation, or by applying the same destructive forces. 

Never lose sight of the all important fact that success 
and prosperity and abundance are products created by your 
own mental forces; by the soul itself. Thought force is a 
substance which is as real as the oxygen of the air. The 
greatest forces in this universe are those which cannot be 
seen. No one has seen electricity, magnetism or gravity. 



78 SELF MASTERY 

We see the proofs of their existence. Psychic power is a 
force which is just as real as magnetism or gravity, but 
difficult for many to quickly comprehend. 

There are many who are born with the right mental 
attitude toward life; and who succeed in everything they 
undertake with apparently no effort. They are optimistic 
and therefore creative by nature. There are others who 
are born with a wrong mental attitude. It is difficult for 
them to comprehend when shown. They are naturally pessi- 
mistic or filled with fear. Such persons are in for a 
struggle in life. They require the helping hand of some 
responsive soul who recognizes their plight to get them 
started in the correct path of life and happiness. 

The more we contemplate the divinity of man, the 
more certainly and beautifully does the divine plan for 
humanity unfold to our view. It is certain that the time is 
not far distant when every man will be a crowned king as 
planned by the great Architect of the ages. 

Success grows largely out of the energies which are set 
in motion by our self confidence. Do not have any foolish 
fears of letting people know that you are self confident. 
Genuine self confidence forms that mysterious link which 
unites us with exactly the Divine Creative forces which we 
wish to attract, or utilize. 

Lack of self confidence begets indecision; indecision 
begets worry, and worry is that hungry, insatiable monster 
which dogs our footsteps from youth to old age, unless we 
slay the beast, once for all. No mind is great enough to 
comprehend the awful ruin, wreck, misery and sorrow 
wrought by this curse. 

The mental attitude of hope, of love, of faith, enthusi- 
asm, will soon overcome any monster that ever attacked the 
human mind. The cure for the disease lies within the dis- 



SELF MASTERY 79 

ease itself. Apply the opposite mental state, and the cure 
is sure, quick, and certain; but we cannot keep returning, 
getting back into the same rut, and expect the cure to re- 
main, whether the cure has been psychic, or of a physical 
nature. 

Brooding over past misfortunes, or allowing ourselves 
to bathe in the muddy pool of remorse, creates a poison 
which sickens the heart, kills ambition, destroys our ability, 
defeats our aims, and literally "dries up the bones." This 
mental attitude will kill anybody or anything except that 
which is evil and undesirable. Lift up the soul in prayer- 
fulness, and hold only to that in the mental plane which 
you want. 

Cultivate self possession, repose, and self control, but 
do not mistake a sphinx-like stare for self possession. 

Emerson says, "The virtue you would love to have, 
assume as already yours, and appropriate. ,, Map out a 
grand program for yourself. Make it large and beautiful. 
Picture yourself as the hero. Put on your optimistic "war 
paint." Play the part like a royal king. Assume success as 
already yours, and act it well always. 

In entering upon this royal program, prepare yourself 
by ridding your mind of all the unpleasant things of the 
past. Start with a new calendar — a new page in life. Keep 
careful watch of the eternal present, and a glowing vision 
of the beautiful future. Never allow yourself to revert to 
an unpleasant past. Dreaming of a sorrowful, disappointed 
past instantly shocks the heart, and sets in motion forces 
which have killed many of the world's best people. It has 
killed more than war. It will do the same for you if you 
indulge in it freely. 

It is well to take inventory occasionally. Examine 
the supply of mental impressions which may have crept 



80 SELF MASTERY 

into your garden of psychic flowers, and which may have 
taken root during the busy hours. Rid your mind regularly 
of any thought creations which you find undesirable. The 
very act of uprooting such undesirable intruders enriches 
the fertility of the brain and brings a strength to the 
flowering thoughts of our own choice. 

This practice will soon become a most pleasant and 
profitable habit. 

It has been said by Professor Elmer Gates, one of the 
foremost experimenters in chemical psychology, that "Any 
one may go into the business of building his own mind. 
Let him summon feelings of benevolence and unselfishness, 
making this a regular exercise like swinging dumb bells. 
Let him gradually increase the time devoted to these psy- 
chical gymnastics until it reaches an hour or an hour and 
a half each day. At the end of a month he will find the 
change in himself surprising." 

Discard any or all thoughts or things which are un- 
desirable or which do not become your ambitions. Holding 
fast to that which rightfully belongs to another, either in 
thought or otherwise, will always bring discord or sorrow. 
It is impossible for it to terminate otherwise. 

There is a wonderful power attracted and absorbed by 
us from our associations, the magnitude of which is far 
reaching, and its effect you cannot afford to ignore. 

If you associate with the frivolous, the aimless, the 
grumbling, the despondent, or with those who have no faith 
in these psychic laws, you will absorb inferior thought 
forces, which will shackle you, weigh you down, cripple 
your powers and injure your health. It matters not how 
much zeal and power you have, if you associate with those 
of the opposite, you will surely be held back. 



SELF MASTERY 81 

Be cautious therefore, of your associations. Make it 
your business to know whether they sympathize with your 
ambitions. If not, then seek those who do. Base associ- 
ation will carry you quickly down into the treacherous 
under-currents, just as the log is carried down with the 
swirling current of the river. Such currents make you lose 
confidence in yourself, in your ability, and make you a 
coward in many respects. They saturate your entire nature 
with unaccountable periods of depression, gloom, and 
peevishness. 

We consciously or unconsciously create a mental at- 
mosphere around us. We build a thought power which is 
ever with, and around us, as literally as we can build a 
house. 

Association with the healthy, happy and successful, aids 
one to keep in an uninterrupted communication with the 
higher Powers ; with powerful currents of elevated thought 
forces on which, when you are once fairly launched, you 
will be carried onward to an ever increasing happiness and 
success. Proper association will aid you to guard against 
the accursed habit of weakening indecisions, which habit 
makes cowards of us, and reduces us to pygmies when com- 
pared to men. 

Holding yourself in the proper thought vibration and 
the right mental attitude, supplemented by proper associ- 
ations, seems to place the magic key in one's hand which 
unlocks the vaults to happiness, success and fame. One 
stands amazed at the unexpected means and agencies that 
will open up for attaining one's ambitions. 

Where you previously encountered difficulty, you will 
now find favor. Once you have gotten nicely started, never 
recede from the new position you have assumed. If you 
do, forces which you then spend to aid you, will now be 



82 SELF MASTERY 

wasted. As you increase in patience, exactness, decision, 
method, and self control, these same qualities flow out to 
others and rebound back to you, ever bringing you more 
power and a greater success. Thus, the more you give, the 
more you have to give, when given in that way — the way 
referred to by the Nazarene. 

Beware of giving too much of your sympathy to those 
afflicted, crippled or in great sorrow. There may occa- 
sionally be a rare exception to the wisdom of this rule. 
This may seem heartless and cruel, but it is not. Justice 
to one's self is the first duty we owe God. The old physician 
has learned by priceless experience, and he warns the young 
physician on this point of "sympathy" on account of his 
own health — that he may live a long, useful and active life. 
Too much sympathy on the part of the physician results 
in his early death. The Magnetic Healer, unacquainted 
with this law of sympathy, frequently takes on himself the 
most violent kinds of chronic diseases, which are not all con- 
tagious. It is proven beyond a doubt that too much sym- 
pathy for the unfortunate, those in poverty on account of 
failure, etc., reacts upon the one who gives the sympathy. 
Too often sympathy proves to be a curse to the one sym- 
pathized with. This means much more than the beginner 
might at first suspect. It is far reaching in its effects on 
the recipient, on the body and also on the psychic forces, 
which are likewise subject to possible disaster. 

If we give sympathy and aid, moral or material, to 
others as they call for it, and without reservation or judg- 
ment, they will take all we have to give, and come open 
mouthed for more, and will continue to do so until we are 
exhausted. No outsider will ever put a limit on your 
giving. You must do that. Generosity and kindness are 
often only other terms for extravagance and injustice to 



SELF MASTERY 83 

somebody — perhaps to the giver. Giving thus becomes a 
fixed habit. Reckless sympathy often gives ten times more 
than the recipient can appreciate. 

Gifts conferred by the Supreme Power are the only 
perfect and lasting gifts, and when thus received, they 
benefit not only the recipient, but many others. 

In your efforts to make life more beautiful, do not work 
until you lose the ability to rest and recuperate. If you do, 
your end is not far off. Work is noble, but it has its limits. 
You can sin against the Temple and its occupants by over- 
working as in any other sin, no matter how necessary such 
self enforced slavery may seem to you. The man who toils 
many hours a day longer than he should, or the mother 
who toils throughout the day, and far into the late hours of 
the night for her children, must suffer sooner or later, and 
pay the price for the sin against the body. God is no 
respecter of persons, conditions or circumstances. 

The law of our physical limitation must not be violated 
by the rich or poor — the good or the bad. As surely as we 
do, just that surely will we suffer for the sin against the 
Temple, right here, and now. 

When we shall have succeeded in launching ourselves 
fairly well, out on the beautiful Occult Way, accept its 
cheer, joys, and responsibilities with humility. Let us 
criticise less and encourage more than ever before. Let 
us work hard but play harder, and more often. Be quick to 
praise, and slow to blame. Be square with our friends, 
and our enemies will be few. Discard no old friend reck- 
lessly, and seek out a new. Pick the mote out of our own 
eye and we will see more virtues in the eyes of our friends. 

It is well for us to remember that the defects we often 
see in others are only responses or reflections from foul 
things hidden in ourselves. Let us be slow in our judgment 



84 SELF MASTERY 

of others, but rather pass wise judgment on ourselves, and 
strive to do better and be better to ourselves and those 
around us. 

The rubber ball hurled against the wall conies bound- 
ing right back. Remember that the evil we say or do to 
others comes back and hurts us; that the fellow who 
"knocks," sooner or later gets hit with the force of his own 
blow. The world has no place for the jealous knocker. It 
is well to remember that the best of us are none too good, 
and that the worst of us are better than many of us are 
prepared to believe; that charm-, kindness and mercy are 
the marks which indicate love, honor and virtue; that he 
who growls loudest against the wrongs in others is doing 
so only to detract attention from the crookedness, dormant 
or active, within himself. 



SELF MASTERY 85 



CHAPTER IV. 



Practical Steps for Entering the Silence. 

All the world's great prophets have come from the 
desert — the abode of Silence ; the home of Solitude. 

Shut a man up with books; let him study awhile 
alone ; out in the mountains or alone in the desert, with no 
companions but his books, the bird life, animal life, and the 
voice of nature, the song of the stars. Let him go "away 
from the world of people," and the power of Silence soon 
works a glorious transformation; an unfoldment of the 
intellect and the understanding; a spiritual discernment in 
his life, which seems almost like a miracle. 

The Silence has forever been the miracle worker. Its 
wonder-working is not confined to the producing of prophets, 
for its great transforming law works in many directions. 
The Silence will ever continue to be the fertile source from 
which love, greatness and genius will spring. Men seeking 
the solution of great problems of invention are observed 
stealing away to the Silence, often refusing to be disturbed 
for days at a time ; and while there, all alone sometimes for 
weeks, communing with their own Soul, at last the solution 
of the trying problem rises up before them, like some kindly 
beacon light in the night. The vision of its solution is 
painted vividly and permanently so that its details may be 
summoned to view at will. 

Some of the great composers have written master pro- 
ductions which have thrilled thousands of people with di- 
vine harmony, yet they could get such strains only after 



86 SELF MASTERY 

long remaining in a mental and physical attitude of Silence 
for days and often weeks at a time. When that act of en- 
tering the Silence had invoked the required conditions, the 
Soul began to hear distinctly, strains of heavenly music 
which became indelibly impressed upon the brain. The 
Soul began then to see the wonderful music written — pic- 
tured in plain view as if done by some unseen hand. So 
clear and vivid became the miracle production that the 
entire masterpiece remained as perfectly in view as all the 
details are of any beautiful picture of nature at the moment 
one gazes upon it. 

In the golden Silence — the inspiring solitude is to be 
found the antidote for most of all the ills and sorrows of 
the race. This assertion is not an idle dream nor is it 
something new. It has been known for thousands of gen- 
erations. This truth has been known by few of the great, 
as far back through the ages as there is any written history 
of humanity. Far back of that, access is still had to a more 
reliable record, by some of the fortunate ones who "have 
eyes to see, and ears to hear." ' 

Have you ever considered the thought as to why the 
world's great "Saviors," or prophets, usually "went away 
to pray alone"? Why they so often went alone — out into 
the stillness of the night, away from everyone else, to some 
lonely spot? 

There is a most vital relationship between the thought 
of the Silence of Solitude and prayer. What is the relation 
of the Soul and its seeking out Solitude to that crying out 
for some avenue of escape from sorrow and unhappiness? 

There is also a profound relationship between desire 
and prayer which is as closely akin as that of electricity to 
magnetism. In the progress of the mind and soul we have 
desire, which acts as the ever present stimulus toward that 



SELF MASTERY 87 

high goal of attainment. If that desire is sufficiently rooted 
in our nature ; if it affects our honor or our happiness, and 
that desire is not soon gratified, we are at last overwhelmed 
with an impulse to kneel down and pray. With this emo- 
tion comes another desire — to be alone; in the quiet Soli- 
tude where, for some reason, usually unknown to us in our 
present comprehension, it just seems sweet and best to be 
alone for awhile. Have your most earnest prayers ever 
been lifted toward "Heaven" while you were in the presence 
of others? Never! 

We feel ourselves responding to that impulse in times 
of grief and sorrow — find ourselves stealing quietly away 
toward some secluded spot, as nearly our idea of Solitude 
as is within our reach; and there the Soul seeks com- 
munion in prayer. Perhaps you may not have prayed for 
years, but that makes little difference, for the Soul knows 
how. Nature is ever kind and furnishes us with a court 
of last resort. Grief drives us into that "Nature's corner," 
where an appeal in prayer is resorted to — and what a re- 
lief follows ! 

It is therefore impossible to think deeply and soberly 
of that great Abode of Silence and what it brings ; the rich 
and joyous returns which Silence bestows upon those who 
commune with the higher Self, without solemn and sober 
thought of prayer. 

No doubt some will read these lines who have been 
unfortunate; some to whom the thought of prayer or re- 
ligion brings up many unpleasant recollections. The mo- 
ment some of us see the word "Prayer," it suggests a great 
confused cluster of notions, due to bad example, or false 
education by misguided but well meaning parents. 

There are many to whom the word "Prayer" suggests 
some form of bigotry; to others, nothing but superstition. 



88 SELF MASTERY 

But this attitude results from the habit of sjirjace obser- 
vation, which is one of the most deadly habit parasites. 

Indifferent thought of prayer, and the tossing of that 
subject away into the scrap heap of other disgusting off- 
casts results from too hasty conclusions without due con- 
sideration of facts. Such a step in any line of reasoning 
often leads to many a sad calamity. 

Header, did you ever examine the philosophy of Prayer 
and any or all of its phenomena, with half the earnestness 
with which you would examine some problem, a new dress, 
some new brand of cigars, or some fancy kind of wine? 

Did your judgment of "Prayer and its phenomena" 
result in your casting it aside as of little value, or impor- 
tance? 

Let us digress and see what a curse surface judgment 
has heaped upon humanity. 

By way of comparison and illustration, it may be well 
to introduce certain undeniable historical facts to elucidate 
the subject, and show up the awful dangers to nation or 
individual, as a result of "Surface Judgment." It is well 
illustrated in the awful world tragedies which, during the 
seventeenth, sixteenth, fifteenth and fourteenth centuries, 
claimed the lives of more than one hundred and thirty 
thousand souls — all sacrificed because of surface judgment 
on the question of "Witch-craft" and "Heretics." Thousands 
of saintly men and women were burned at the stake — all in 
the name of God. 

Think of our own similar tragedies here in the United 
States, at Salem, Mass., less than two hundred years ago! 
There this same surface judgment mania caused nine per- 
sons to be hanged at one time, following a long sermon and 
supposedly suitable prayers by one of the leading preachers 
of America! The authorities of all New England seemed 



SELF MASTERY 89 

ready for the asylum. If the authority of government and 
justice had been vested in a mad house, and administered 
by lunatics, it could have been no worse. 

Think of the tragedy and the awful loss to humanity 
when that great and good man and saint Cazella was 
burned in the streets of Spain. In a moment of sanity, 
after that awful crime, one of the priests who assisted in 
burning him remarked, "I am satisfied that he is now in 
heaven, for I saw his soul leave his body." 

Think of the world's greatest of all tragedies which 
still causes two of the most powerful nations of Europe to 
bow their heads in shame because of the tortuous death of 
that virgin, Joan of Arc. No other such tragedy is recorded 
in the annals of man's history; and it was because of sur- 
face judgment. 

The same was true of Jesus and Socrates. 

Tragedies are constantly happening to each of us or 
in any case most of us, because of surface judgment. 

In seeking to better your life, therefore, do not over- 
look the one great question of "Prayer, Silence and their 
phenomena." The Seeking of help through the Silence 
(through prayer, if you like,) is found in some form in all 
ages, in all places, among all peoples everywhere, civilized 
or uncivilized, throughout the world, The great psycholog- 
ists have all agreed that the underlying principle of all 
desire is a sort of unconscious prayer, that prayer itself is 
a manifestation of desire. The fact that this manifestation, 
this desiring, and that impulse to "go away to some lonely 
spot," for the purpose of praying, is found in all ages past, 
and among every known people of high or low degree, 
favors the theory and the principle that desiring to pray 
is a phenomena which points out a higher law. It does 



90 SELF MASTERY 

more than that — it actually reveals that higher power, that 
everpresent, everhelpful force, hidden deeply in nature. 

It is noted universally that even the most ungodly fall 
upon their knees and offer prayer to the unknown God 
when such catastrophes occur, as the sinking of the "Ti- 
tanic," the "Martiniques" and the "Frisco" horrors. 

When great sorrow overtakes us, and our burden of 
grief bears us down so heavily that we feel we no longer 
can bear up under the strain, that desire to be freed from 
it, to be relieved of the unbearable agony, forces us to seek 
the helping hand of that mystic power which Nature has 
placed within our reach, and to which power we have ac- 
cess and recourse as a last resort. And it is as it should 
be — not to be used to its fullest limit, only during special 
occasions, but always to be used constantly and wisely. 

God, (Nature) , has implanted within the Soul, or 
placed within its easy reach, a power, or agency, which is 
capable of overcoming most of the great sorrows and 
tragedies which bow us down. Man's higher nature is so 
adjusted that it is possible to call into action this divine 
force at the moment when this force compels man to seek 
that which is highest. Through the avenue of prayer, man 
arouses the subtle, latent powers of the Soul, which power 
seems never called into action or aroused in any other 
manner. It would seem that in no other way can the 
miracle working forces be brought into action. 

Intense longing, sorrow or great grief whips us into a 
corner, and at last we seek relief or help in the attitude 
and utterance of emotional prayer. 

The Soul's energies or powers to do are always present, 
held in reserve; but that kind of intense prayer which, in 
a moment often works a transforming miracle, is only pos- 
sible during periods of intense distress of mind. It can be 



SELF MASTERY 91 

brought into action only in the presence of mental, physical 
and spiritual attitude of prayer. This law is wise and 
rights for there is another law which teaches us that 
constant, intense, emotional prayer leads to fanaticism, in 
the same manner in which too much exercise of any func- 
tion of the body or brain, continued constantly, and for 
long periods of time, will produce an unbalanced, abnormal 
condition, from which it is only a step to loss of health. 

There is a normal, natural, daily prayer attitude which 
ever leads onward and upward to illumination of the Soul, 
the acquiring wisdom, growth of perfect health, a greater 
love, and a grander light on all questions of life. Lofty 
aspirations, a firm, loving, gentle desire, constantly exercised 
in the right direction, a wise persistent demand — prayer 
offered in gentle, loving, trusting simplicity — all offered in 
the highest and purest sense, will lift the body above 
worldly ills, the Soul above worldly troubles, and bless us 
with all the heavenly gifts and worldly help necessary for 
our comfort and happiness. Such prayer, offered daily 
while in the Silent place, will constantly evolve for us 
something higher, nobler and better. It will push us ever 
onward toward a greater success. It will gradually attune 
our bodily, mental and psychic powers to that pitch of di- 
vine harmony with the great eternal force of Nature so 
perfectly that to be other than healthy, happy, successful 
and contented would be impossible. This must be obtained 
through knowledge of the Silence. 

That strange, shuddering sensation which comes to so 
many from the thought of the Silence; that shrinking fear 
of loneliness on the part of many is pitiable. They are 
afraid of Self. There are people who would not have any 
fear of wild animals ; who would unhesitatingly slay a lion 
or face devils, but who "fear" if left alone. They are afraid 



92 SELF MASTERY 

lest they discover themselves, meet themselves face to face 
in the lonely spot where escape is impossible. 

There are others who long to get by themselves, but 
who know not the art. Many of us never know the bless- 
ings which come in that sweet hour when one is all alone 
with one's self. 

Much has been written about "Entering the Silence," 
and while there are comparatively few who know its secret 
path, yet it is very easy and one of the most useful and 
valuable of all accomplishments. 

Many a bitter hour and foolish deed would we avoid if 
we learned to enjoy the blessings which are offered to us 
out of the depths of the illuminating Silence. Once we 
have mastered the art, life will instantly hold a thousand 
new charms for us ; and death will soon lose all of its fears. 

Man is afraid of that which he does not understand, 
and he understands less of himself than he does of all other 
things which he knows. When he finds himself in Solitude, 
he sees nothing there but the Solitude and himself. Not 
being well acquainted with himself, he becomes panic 
stricken, and wants to run away. 

Self is the one thing most of us do not study, examine, 
or try out; and the trying of ourselves out, all alone, by 
ourselves, in the Silence, is the only means of discovering 
ourselves. When left to ourselves, many of us become 
bored, miserable and desperate. Men left in solitary con- 
finement go mad. 

Many of us are afraid of an empty house, and if left 
alone to sleep in it, we are visited with strange, weird, un- 
accountable horrors. We would sleep in the open prairie 
with its tarantulas and poison reptiles, or camp on the 
open mountain top, and hear the cry of its prowling ani- 



SELF MASTERY 93 

mals in search of prey, and endure the weird noises of the 
birds of night, than endure a night in a lonely cabin. 

What a glorious transformation occurs when we begin 
to realize our divinity, and discover the realities of the 
golden Silence. It is full of beautiful things for every one. 
Be not afraid of it. Walk right up to the imaginary ogres ; 
look them square in the face, and they vanish, and you will 
soon taste of the golden realities which are here in abund- 
ance. 

Every one needs some time, every day, when he can be 
absolutely alone. He ought, then, to look into his own mind, 
heart and soul, take inventory, get acquainted with him- 
self, and become familiar with what he finds within. The 
moment we do this we find ourselves good company. 

It is at first impossible for one to grasp the idea of 
the vast benefits which an hour of utter Silence will bring 
him, who deliberately seeks, and honestly endeavors to find 
what it offers. When first attempting it, we are prone 
to feel almost overwhelmed with doubts and questions as 
to the mysteries which loom up before us. The first time 
one is in the desert, the stillness and solitude become ap- 
palling; but it is well known to all who have sojourned 
there for a while, that the lure of the Silent desert with 
its dreams, enchantments and illusions is one which never 
ceases to draw one back again. 

Likewise, when we first "enter the Silence,' , we are 
tempted to forsake its stillness and its fascination and seek 
the companionship of friends. But like the "stay in the 
desert," if we persist, and just let our hearts fill up and 
run over with the strange mixture of thoughts, until these 
incongruous mixtures have stilled themselves, and out of it 
will come a "beautiful quiet," a serene calmness, a self pos- 
session, such a joyous illuminating contentment as can come 



94 SELF MASTERY 

to the troubled hearts of men and women in no other way. 
The Silence solves many a mystery. 

After you have won the first great battle with Self, 
while in the abode of Silence, you have won your way to 
the shrine at which you will learn the sweetest, grandest 
and most practical kind of wisdom. You will return from 
your first victory with a deeper insight into life, and its 
mysteries than you ever had before. You will be far in 
advance of that person who is ever busy with the surface 
things. 

During all the great crises of the world, humanity has 
been compelled to turn to the lonely thinker — the man of 
Silence, the Master who came out of the Solitude. The 
world's great Saviors have all come from the deserts. The 
great poets from Silent Musings. The Gallileos, with their 
messages of wisdom, emerge from the Solitude. Every 
great man or woman who has blessed humanity, who has 
made the world better, happier, and wiser, has come from 
the Solitude — a child of Silence. 

Buddha, Jesus and Paul remained away in the Solitude 
for long periods before returning to the world of people 
with messages of wisdom. 

The best, truest and most useful information we ever 
get about men, life, ourselves, and the world; the beautiful 
truths of the stars, the flowers, of little children; of the 
sweetness of love, and the great wisdom of God all comes 
to us from "Entering the Silence," of "Being Still," and 
there communing with ourselves. 

That we should use moderation in all things, is a truism 
of which we should never lose sight. Like every other good 
thing in life, the silence can be abused. One can brood 
over things while alone, until he becomes a crank, deranged 



SELF MASTERY 95 

or a fanatic. This is anything but the right sort of Silence, 
and must be carefully guarded against. 

One of the curses of the times is our being everlastingly 
too busy — always hurrying. Modern life is a busy whirl. 
We work and we play and we rushingly chatter away stolen 
moments as if it were our last moment — our last chance. 
And when we do have an hour of leisure, many of us devour 
cheap books, or trashy magazines, which not only rob us of 
that hour, but absolutely weaken and poison our minds, 
with highly colored and sensational brain storming absurd- 
ities, which fire the emotions and leave you exhausted men- 
tally, and still hungering for that something the Soul has 
failed to receive. The modern rush and grind make us 
irritable and helpless if we drift with the din. Many of us 
do not dare to just sit down and think; we must do some- 
thing, go somewhere, read something — no longer do we 
have that "hour for rest and reflection." No hour to 
dream of the child at play, the song of the birds, or the 
wonders of Nature. 

How different is the life, the contentment and genuine 
happiness of that one who still clings to that half -hour for 
Silent Musings during which he simply lets his thoughts 
run, who enjoys watching them, and who sees the great, 
deep, creative pictures of life grow before him. 

The best thoughts we ever get are not those which we 
are taught, or of which we read, but those which come to 
us out of the depths of the Silence, as if let down to us out 
of the great ocean of space ; and as they come nearer, they 
shine out before us like the star of the East, as it poised in 
the heavens before the wise men. 



96 SELF MASTERY 

Worries and Troublesome Questions. 

If you are deeply worried, try a simple remedy instead 
of seeking advice from a host of acquaintances; just go 
away where you can be all alone, all by yourself where it is 
quiet, where you will not be disturbed. Quietly meditate. 
Sit quietly for half an hour. Let your thoughts wander for 
awhile. Do not try to control them or think logically. You 
may have chosen the place of Solitude in your own private 
room, out by the stream in the park, by the side of a lake, 
on the mountain or in the forest. In those first few mo- 
ments of Silence, you may seem to grow restless. If so, 
just be quiet; take a new hold on yourself, and begin to 
study how you may get in touch with, in communion with 
the great secret power which dwells in the Silence. Begin 
by thinking and investigating the thought of Solitude itself, 
and just see what thoughts will come to you in return. 

After you have permitted your wound up thoughts to 
chase each the other around and around aimlessly, while 
they are darting here and there, bringing this, and that 
picture, like some wild thing in the night, just let them go, 
and very soon you will begin to realize a calm stealing 
over you. You will begin to catch its meaning, catch a 
glimpse of things real, the broadness of life, the narrowness 
of your own views, the greatness of others, the goodness 
of Self, the sublimity of your Surrounding Solitude. If 
by the lake, its wondrous beauty will impress you as never 
before. The trees will soon begin to speak to you, the flowers 
will whisper a new message, and all life will smile a smile 
you never beheld before. Even the song of the birds and 
the hum of the insects will bring a new meaning to you 
and broaden your view of existence. Just here, let your- 



SELF MASTERY 97 

self relax more completely ; let loose your tightened muscles 
and just "be still, and know that I am God." 

Very rapidly the things over which you worried will 
grow smaller, while the beauties of life grow larger. It all 
has a new meaning, a new song to our ear. Slowly and 
surely the message of the Infinite begins to dawn upon you ; 
the sweetness of the Silence has eased your tired brain; 
gradually but certainly, the great light Eternal steals over 
you, and your soul can see what you could not see before. 
You will find yourself "at one" with, at peace with your- 
self and Nature's way. Gradually the thought of your 
divinity will steal over your brain and you will say that 
you always were and you always will be ; that to worry and 
hurry only leads one into that whirlpool of darkness and 
gloom from which when you later emerge you find yourself 
much worsted for the experience, your time wasted, and 

Let your Soul recall what it has oft heard before — per- 
haps in ages past — "Your Soul shall live forever." 

This beautiful thought obligates you to a grander out- 
look at once. It enables you to view all eternity ahead of 
you. It shows you that it is folly to stick to the "low vaulted 
past," but it is wisdom to begin to build a mansion of 
beauty, a life of joy, a future of power and happiness. 
Why not, when you have all eternity in which to build? 

But the more you build now, the more wisely and 
beautifully today, the grander will that mansion be to- 
morrow. Neglecting joys today cheats you of sweeter 
pleasures tomorrow. 

And just here, while still relaxed, while yet communing 
with your higher Self in the Silence, begin turning the 
troublesome questions over which have vexed and worried 
you. Decide them in one way and try now vividly to im- 
agine the results which would follow. Now decide another 



98 SELF MASTERY 

way. Gently turn the question over several times, so that 
you may get used to it at every angle. Then just let loose 
again, relax yourself more fully and ask yourself — your 
Soul, for the final answer; and the answer — the right 
answer, the wisest answer, the only answer will come and 
quiet your troubled heart. 

You may say "0, I just simply can not do it that way 
now/' possibly because of social position, or a thousand 
other reasons may be advanced by as many persons, but 
you may be certain that the following of any other course 
than that solution which was offered in that new light will 
only bring greater trouble later on. 

One hour of serious, honest Solitude and "perfect Sil- 
ence" will do more to rid us of moral contamination, of 
tramp thoughts, of mental garbage, than a whole month of 
any other kind of effort. 

While Communing in the Silence, when your eyes be- 
hold the beautiful grandeurs spread before you, and your 
ears hear for the first time that new song of nature, let 
your thoughts dwell for some moments on the thought that 
you are something more than a body, something more than a 
bundle of wants and woes ; that within your mental frame 
there is the real you, the /. A living, thinking entity which 
the laws of material growth, death or decay can never affect ; 
that for this divine something within, death is not a long 
period of darkness at the bottom of life's ladder, but only the 
change, an awakening as we step out into a new life; that 
death is but the turning of a new page of life, where the 
dawn breaks into morning and the dark shadows flee away. 

Glorious, illuminating, ever helpful Silence ! When we 
have it properly cultivated it reveals to us new worlds and 
transforms meaningless things into sources of everlasting 
pleasures. Out of the Silence we learn some of the most 



SELF MASTERY 99 

beautiful, pleasing, as well as startling facts, not only about 
ourselves and our own lives, but things which are going 
on around us, just under the surface; get glimpses of that 
which is behind the scenes of the twentieth century civili- 
zation. 

However, one thing is certain: it is impossible to tell 
you in this book just exactly what to do or exactly what 
facts you are going to have revealed to you while you are 
absorbing from the Solitude. If this were possible or wise, 
there would be no need of your going to all the trouble to 
learn it. No other Soul but your own can learn or experi- 
ence something which Nature decrees you must experience 
or learn while dwelling in your bodily temple, this time. 
You only, must learn for yourself. You have the word of 
all who have tried it that it is glorious, and pays hand- 
somely for every effort you make in this domain. All who 
have honestly tested it, tell of its wonderfully illuminating 
and inspiring emotions and revelations which really satisfy 
the heart as nothing else can. It enables you soon to see, 
your fondest hopes becoming materialized into splendid 
realities. 

Think of the richness of the vision which came out of 
the Silence to that remarkable person, Helen Kellar, when 
she was yet a child. She was born deaf and blind. When 
her education had been carried to that point at which she 
could communicate her thoughts to others, the great Phillip 
Brooks began to tell her of God. After he had impressed 
her with several thoughts which he believed were all new 
to her, she replied to his questions, "Yes, I knew all this 
before, but I did not know his name was God." The whole 
world knows her work since. 

How did she know? There is an intuition which 
throbs eternally in the heart of all people which says that 



100 SELF MASTERY 

we are immortal, that there is a great power divine of 
which we are a part, which will make us glad and happy if 
we only get in tune with the divine way — man's natural 
way, Nature's way; that Nature's way is the wisest way, 
truest, holiest, and best way ; that if we look up with lofty 
aspiration and seek wise guidance from the silence, the 
great Eternal Presence of that which connects us with the 
source divine and inexhaustible, there will come to us the 
perfect light and direction. 

Out of this gentle Silence, while the Soul instinctively 
looks out and away toward that heaven whence it came, cry- 
ing out against the apparent injustice of fate, seeking solace 
for the wounded soul, something whispers back from out 
the depths of the mysteries of Life, that in the Silence is 
to be found the reality of God's smile, which many never 
find until fate drives them into the corner of sorrow, in 
which place most people hear His voice easily. It tells us 
that in this Silence is that place in which, if man seeks, he 
shall surely find — find the solution, the remedy, the only 
remedy which heals the broken heart and brings health, 
happiness and success. It teaches us that preserving that 
hour of prayer in which one "goes away by himself" en- 
ables one to grasp that everpresent, unseen, divine, helping 
hand which awaits all who seek. God is not afar off nor 
hard to find. 

All phenomena of Nature and life teach us the lesson 
of system and regularity. We should have some special 
time for communion with self in Silence. When you work, 
work. When you play, play, but when you seek the Silence, 
remember to "go away to the place of Silence," alone, and 
"Let not thy right hand know what thy left hand doeth." 

The Silence and Solitude do not encourage us to be 
hermits. "There is a time for everything." There is a 



SELF MASTERY 101 

time to devote to yourself — privately, away from friends, 
and concealed from the eyes of the world. Many a splendid 
friendship has been wrecked because this principle has been 
violated. The soul needs room — must have it — in which to 
turn around at times. 

Try the Silence in harmony with the truths contained 
in the earlier chapters of this book — try it for a week, at 
regular hours each day, and see what a transformation it 
will work in you. You will find' that you have taken on a 
new supply of spiritual, psychic and physical energy. After 
an hour of such psychic revery, you will be refreshed bodily 
and have a clear mental atmosphere. It will be a pleasure 
to contemplate, a new source of hope, strength and light. 

That great and gentle Wordsworth knew the meaning 
of Silence. He had bathed in its transforming glories. 
Note in his verse: 

"0, gentle reader, had you in mind 

Such treasures as silent thought can bring. 
'Tis there, my reader, that you will find 

A tale in everything. 
Just one impulse from the vernal wood 

May teach you more of man, 
Of morals, of evil and of good 

Than all the sages can." 

The normal human being craves companionship, family 
life, fellowship and friendship. This is as it should be — 
the plan of the great Kingdom of Love. 

As against this natural craving, there is warning of 
"an overdose" — carrying of association too far. 

The secret of many of the most sorrowful experiences 
in human life is the outgrowth of too much friendship, too 
much constant association. 



102 SELF MASTERY 

Constant mingling with vivacious and dashing society 
develops that keen alertness, that quickness of repartee, but 
it literally robs the Soul of those stronger, nobler, more 
substantial qualities of character which, once taken from 
us, we are never the same again. Such splendid qualities 
for which the better people of the whole world long are 
growing only in the Shadow of Silence and Solitude. The 
glare of the city lights, night after night, with its dashing 
crowd, with its never ceasing stimulus of alert companion- 
ship, seems to offer many pleasing and fascinating charms 
for the moment, and especially for the fair sex, but it 
literally robs life of its sweetest things and after all, leaves 
the heart and soul hungry and sad. Empty of all save re- 
grets and despondency. But alas, this is usually discovered 
too late. If any doubt this, ask those who have had experi- 
ence, who have roamed the world and mingled with all the 
world had to offer. The stronger and more substantial 
traits of manhood and womanhood which are required to 
meet the great crises and tragedies of life have no chance 
to unfold within the soul who is denied time for being alone 
— in the Solitude. It prepares us to meet our own indi- 
vidual fate with a smile, strong in the presence of reverses 
and sorrow, brave in the hour of misfortune. In a word, it 
helps us as nothing else to be triumphant, to master Self, 
and he who is master of Self will be master of many others. 
It fortifies one with a serene calmness, courage and a poise 
which qualities can never rise to the Soul's surface if that 
one ever drifts with the chattering, the witty, butterfly 
crowd. Such a life crushes out the last spark of possible 
unfoldment while in this incarnation. If you doubt this, 
look about you and your doubt will quickly flee. 

Get acquainted with the Divine Inner Self. You will 
have to face every great crisis of life alone. You were born 



SELF MASTERY 103 

alone. You are left to face trouble alone. Why not get 
acquainted with yourself? There is but one way, the Silent 
Hour. When you really know yourself, great sorrows and 
life's tragedies lose nearly all their terrors. It enables us 
to unfold higher qualities of character and discover wis- 
dom of Self and of others about life and about God, which 
gives a peace, a knowledge, a poise, grace, and power for 
which the whole world is hungering. You will be envied 
by few, but loved by all. 

The Special Hour. 

In seeking to unfold the highest within us, and in un- 
folding for the special purpose of attaining a certain de- 
sired result, whether in happiness for self, some special 
change in the life of a friend, or whether it be pertaining 
to a greater degree of financial success, in health, in love; 
success in developing the noblest qualities in character, 
psychic talents, clairvoyance, or the powers of mental crea- 
tions or astral projections, one of the most valuable prac- 
tices and indispensable requisites is to have a regular time 
each day during which we seek absolute silence and relax- 
ation. Often becoming perfectly quiet with the entire body 
relaxed, let the soul contemplate its own divinity and really 
try to feel more appreciation for the great beauties of life. 
Endeavor to hold this mental and spiritual attitude for ten 
minutes and then lovingly and wisely demand of the great 
Unseen Creative Source and Supply that which you seek. 
Any sort of demanding or kind of prayer which is minus 
this divine attitude will never do. Any kind of mental 
gymnastics without this religious attitude, this attitude of 
realizing your own relation to the Great Divinity Itself, 
plus a sort of joyous elevated, divine exhilaration, will 
never enable any one to gain that which he seeks. 



104 SELF MASTERY 

A GENERAL PROGRAMME. 

(1) Monday. Seek the abode of Silence as described 
above, and as far as possible, hold this attitude of realizing 
your own divinity for a few moments, and then follow this 
with a few moments of asking (demanding) that which 
you long for, to make yourself or another happy. 

(2) Tuesday. Seek the Silence in that beautiful, 
sacred hour of rest in the same absorbing manner as on 
Monday. Contemplate realization, and the psychic attitude 
of realizing your closeness to the ever present power of the 
Infinite, then gently contemplate wisdom, and you will soon 
be surprised at the result. Then devote the remaining few 
moments you have to gently, lovingly but firmly asking 
(demanding) that which you desire. 

(3) Wednesday. After entering the Silence, contem- 
plate Patience. Enter that spiritual ecstacy of realizing 
your own divine nature as mentioned above. 

(4) Invite a feeling of joyous smile which will ex- 
press on your features that consciousness of Divine Pres- 
ence — a consciousness that you are an immortal soul. Then 
ask for a greater unfoldment and expansion of your own 
soul's power to express itself in the body (its Temple), and 
for greater fields of activity in producing good for Self and 
Humanity. Then gently demand the fulfillment of those 
special objects for which you may be striving. Believe and 
know that you are inseparable from God's great source of 
supply, 

(5) Thursday. Enter the hour of Silence as before, 
and after completely relaxing the body and attaining the 
proper spiritual consciousness of self divinity, gently de- 
mand that your soul express itself in a body beautiful ; that 



SELF MASTERY 105 

the Soul by divine nature is perfect, and it must therefore 
by Nature, if permitted, unfold for itself a perfectly healthy 
body in which to dwell. Seek an understanding of the 
power of repose and ask for bodily expression of a more 
pleasing, magnetic personality. Follow this with a gentle 
demand of the great Everpresent, Inexhaustible Supply, for 
those special gifts or realizations for which your heart is 
seeking. 

(6) Friday. Seek the knowledge which gives a greater 
love of Self, and a nobler love for friends. "As thou lovest 
thy dearest friend, love thou thyself also," and then you 
will the more wisely love God. This, however, does not 
mean that you should indiscriminately give out your sym- 
pathy to those who are victims of apparent misfortune. If 
you do, you will do great injury to them and equally injure 
yourself. Unwise sympathy is as dangerous as hate and 
revenge to the one who indulges. It is an emotion which 
will cause you much trouble unless carefully guarded 
against. Follow with special concentration that which you 
personally wish to attain. 

(7) Saturday. After having entered the "Silent Rev- 
ery," seek to extend your thought creations out over the 
whole world, ladened with good wishes and glad tidings. 
Hold the prayer attitude of wishing a higher and better 
understanding of the great Light Eternal ; that every indi- 
vidual, everywhere throughout the earth, may behold that 
inner Light. Hold the thought (prayer) that all may at- 
tract bountifully of love, of success, health, happiness, and 
that the day may be hastened when every Soul will have 
shaken the last outer shell from itself, and entered a con- 
dition of perfect understanding at which time strife, dis- 
ease and sorrow shall have been overcome. 



106 SELF MASTERY 

(8) Sunday. Devote a large portion of your hour of 
Silence to seeking a higher understanding, and to sending 
out thought creations to assist all those "Who are banded 
together in Silence and in secret, striving for divine under- 
standing, and to attain those blessings of life to which each 
one found worthy is entitled." The four Gospels are rich 
with occult philosophy, and to those who read and study 
Self Mastery, the life of the Nazarene prophet will reveal 
many a beautiful truth which has previously remained 
hidden or buried by false translations, or confusing context. 



SELF MASTERY 107 



Take a few hours a week and get acquainted with 
yourself, and you will find yourself fairer than the 
rose, and worthy of a thousandfold better considera- 
tion than you have bestowed upon yourself. 



The Normal Soul seeks needed sympathy as the 
growing bulb craves sunlight. Both are necessary to 
the fulfillment of the great plan of life. When that 
craving for true sympathy is not met with a generous 
response, that Soul is dwarfed, and one cannot smile 
as one whose life plan is properly fed. 



Even Jesus craved sympathy. During the darkest 
hour of his life, just preceding the tragedy of Geth- 
semane, he said to those of whom he rightfully could 
claim sympathy, "Could you not remain and watch 
with me, one hour?" 



To sacrifice a true and tried friend for any per- 
sonal advantage or position, is eventually to rob your- 
self instead of your friend. 



To seek out that which is good and noble in man, 
is to search for God himself. 



Man's first great duty shines out like the brightest 
star. His first observations teach him that love 
soothes and heals the ugly wounds; that tender con- 
siderations are as beautifying to the one on whom 
bestowed, as lillies beautify the spot which they adorn. 



108 SELF MASTERY 



If you have no love for God's creatures, how can 
you expect much of God's love shown you? If you 
despise any of God's children, how can you hope 
truly to love God? 

The great divine guide-post for the next thousand 
years will read, "As a man thinketh"; "the starry 
heavens above"; "the great moral law within." 



The soul feeds on faithfulness, admiration, hope, 
love. If one's love is dwarfed and withered, it mars 
and shrinks the whole life. To have a bosom friend 
whom we can trust, and to whom we can pour out 
our griefs, be they great or small, to whom we can 
safely confide our hopes, doubts and fears, this will 
take all the bitterness from the battles of life. 



Sympathy increases gladness, diminishes sorrow, 
and makes stronger and nobler him whom gives of 
wise sympathy. 

There is a sort of sympathy which is dangerous, 
and to be avoided as one would any other well-known 
danger. There is little danger from this source to 
those in whose heart the message of this little book 
finds a gentle response. 



The only thing in life which is offered to us free, 
is God, love, and knowledge of your own soul. 

FINIS. 



FEB 10 1913 



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